New EU mercury regulations passed will help prevent healthcare workers from being directly exposed to mercury and will also reduce mercury pollution in the environment.
The new laws, seen by Health Care Without Harm Europe (HCWHE) as a positive step forward, include a ban on the sale of mercury thermometers for use in healthcare. Mercury blood-pressure devices for use by professionals have, however, escaped being banned.
Karoline Ruzickova, Safer Materials Campaign Coordinator for HCWHE, says: ?The ban will ultimately mean an end to spills from thermometer breakages. This will reduce indoor contamination and the costs and inconvenience of cleaning up mercury spills. It will also reduce contamination of the environment resulting from incorrect disposal of mercury thermometers.? (1)
One product group missing from the ban but which environment and health groups had wanted to be included is blood pressure devices for professional use. Although they have been banned from sale to the general public, the European Council refused to ban their sale to healthcare facilities, citing uncertainty about their precision for special diagnostic requirements. The EU Commission has only committed to reviewing the availability of accurate alternatives and to revisiting the issue in two years? time.
?This is disappointing,? says Ruzickova. ?Standards agency-approved mercury-free blood pressure devices suitable for highly precise diagnostic requirements are widely available and have been in use in Europe for years. Sweden banned the sale of all mercury devices in 1992. (2) Other healthcare providers in Europe, such as the Vienna Hospital Association (Austria), have since followed suit in phasing out mercury.?