Press Releases

State Medical Technology Alliance (SMTA) Statement on EtO

As leaders of state and regional trade associations representing the medical technology industry across the country, we are deeply concerned with recent legal and legislative actions undertaken in at least two states to shut down medical device sterilization operations. 

Should the State of Georgia continue in its current efforts to close a sterilization facility in Covington, this action would mark the third facility closure in two states in just over six months.

The closure of medical device sterilization facilities will disrupt the health care supply chain in every state and territory in the US and cause serious public health consequences that will impact hundreds of thousands of vulnerable Americans across the country.

Medical device sterilization techniques utilizing ethylene oxide (EtO) are essential to ensuring the safety of more than 20 billion medical devices every year, approximately fifty percent of all devices sterilized annually. Without this sterilization method, millions of patients simply will not have access to critical, life-saving and life-sustaining treatments.

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