D.C. - Lack of basic environmental practices at major U.S.hospitals is resulting in serious pollution problems and contamination of major foods, including baby foods, a new study has found. The first ever environmental survey of 50 major U.S. hospitals uncovered widespread failure on the part of medical facilities to take steps to halt contamination of milk, meats and fish by dioxins and mercury, pollutants that cause a wide range of health impacts. Federal studies show that incineration of millions of pounds of hospital waste each year is a major source of the highly toxic contaminants, both of which find their way into the food supply. Hopkins unnecessarily sends waste to a low income Baltimore community to be burned in an incinerator with a dangerous safety record.
Some hospitals are environmental heroes.
But the industry has a long way to go to before it can be considered environmentally responsible. Of the top 50 hospitals surveyed, over 40 percent were unnecessarily incinerating waste that could be treated by safer methods. Only 4 percent of the hospitals surveyed used PVC-free IV bags, the easiest and most cost effective alternative for a major PVC hospital product. Dioxin, the deadliest known carcinogen, also disrupts the normal functioning of the hormone system, leading to a broad array of reproductive and developmental health problems. A study released this month by Consumer Reports found that dioxin levels in the average jar of processed meat baby-food products were 100 times greater than the government's daily limit.