San Francisco Chronicle - Friday, October 27, 2000
William Carlsen and Reynolds Holding, Chronicle Staff Writers

The bill, called the Needlestick Safety and Prevention Act, was approved by the House of Representatives last month and now goes to President Clinton, who is expected to sign it.

The legislation will require health care facilities nationwide to provide their employees with syringes and blood-drawing devices incorporating safety features that retract, blunt or cover the needles after they are used.

The safety features can reduce accidental needle injuries by up to 80 percent, sharply curtailing transmissions of deadly viruses and diseases like HIV and hepatitis, studies show.

"This bill goes a long way to ensure that health care workers won't get stuck with needles, which can lead to months of anxiety and a possible death sentence," said Andrew Stern, president of the Service Employees International Union, one of the organizations that led the campaign to pass the bill.

Stern called it tragic that some of the health care workers who years ago began the crusade for safer needles, like San Francisco nurse Peggy Ferro, died of needle-transmitted disease before they could witness the bill's passage.

MODELED AFTER STATE LAW

The federal legislation is modeled on California's needle safety law, which was introduced by Assemblywoman Carole Migden, D- San Francisco, and signed by then- Gov. Pete Wilson in 1998. Since then, 16 other states have passed similar laws.

The California law was prompted by a series of Chronicle articles reporting that tens of thousands of health care workers like Ferro had contracted HIV and hepatitis from needle sticks over the prior decade.

The series reported that an array of safety designs capable of reducing the number of needle injuries has been available for many years, but manufacturers were reluctant to produce the safety needles, and hospitals balked at the higher costs.

MAJOR VICTORY FOR UNIONS

Yesterday's legislation requires that health care workers involved in patient care be directly involved in the selection of the safety needles to be used in their workplaces. The provision was a major victory for the unions, which have argued that many hospitals are buying the cheapest and least effective safety devices without consulting the employees who are required to use them.

Under the new regulations, employers will also be required to keep detailed logs on needle injuries and their causes to help determine how best to prevent future injuries.

After the legislation is signed by the president, the secretary of labor will have up to six months to publish the new regulations in the Federal Register.

The new regulations will take effect 90 days after publication.

The Senate bill was co-sponsored by Sens. James Jeffords, R-Vt.; Mike Enzi, R-Wyo.; Edward Kennedy, D- Mass.; and Harry Reid, D-Nev.; who guided it through the last-minute budget battle now raging between Clinton and the Senate's Republican leadership.

The bipartisan effort nearly collapsed a month ago when Sen. Jim Bunning, R-Ky., put a hold on the bill, a move that could have blocked its passage.

Bunning said he was acting on behalf of a Lexington, Ky., company, MedPro Inc., that makes needle destruction devices. The company claimed that the legislation put it at a disadvantage in the marketplace because the regulations favored safety needles over disposal devices.

Two weeks ago, Bunning dropped his opposition after the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration sent him a letter stating that needle destruction devices continue to reduce the risk of needle injuries.

The legislative action yesterday follows a series of moves by federal agencies over the past year to finally come to grips with an epidemic of needle sticks that threatens the health and safety of 8 million nurses, doctors and other medical and public safety workers around the nation.

In November 1999, OSHA ordered its workplace inspectors to begin citing hospitals that have not started the switch to safe needles. The agency will also launch this year a training program to teach inspectors what to look for with the complicated, fast-changing needle technology.

Also in November 1999, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta issued a strongly worded safety alert to the nation's hospitals, warning of the serious dangers of accidental needle sticks.

The alert noted that for every 100 beds in a hospital there are an average of 30 potentially lethal needle injuries per year. Up to 80 percent of the injuries can be eliminated through the use of needles and syringes with built-in safety features, the CDC said.

SYRINGE WITH RETRACTABLE NEEDLE

With an extra push on the plunger, the needle retracts into the syringe

Needle retracts into barrel of syringe

Health care workers currently use 6 billion needles each year in the United States -- most of them conventional needles without safety features to prevent accidental needle stick injuries. Legislation passed yesterday by the Senate will require medical facilities to provide health care workers with safety needles like the model above.

E-mail William Carlsen at wcarlsen@sfchronicle.com and Reynolds Holding at rholding@sfchronicle.com.

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