I inquired asking if being tested weekly (which is being treated differently than anyone else) is grounds for a discrimination case against the business I work for. My lawyer wrote back and confirmed.
Hello,
You are correct that there is a lot of science to back up your position. Ultimately you are saying that the weekly swab is not a reasonable accomodation and you want to re-negotiate.
An employee offered no accommodation or that regards certain accommodations as unreasonable, can make a proposal of a ‘reasonable’ accommodation to HR. The EEOC expects a dialog and the employer is required to review other options and also provide Measurable, Quantifiable proof why accommodations proposed by the employee are not feasible (would cause undue hardship to the employer). A mere verbal claim of undue hardship is not sufficient.
Accommodations are something that is meant to be discussed and agreed upon between employee and employer and the EEOC expects a negotiation until both sides agree on what is reasonable. Otherwise, according to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 Title VII, you are being discriminated against and have a legitimate legal claim against your employer
Swabs are most often sterilized with ethylene oxide (ETO or EO on the swab package)
According to the EPA, “Chronic (long-term) exposure to ethylene oxide in humans can cause irritation of the eyes, skin, nose, throat, and lungs, and damage to the brain and nervous system. There also is some evidence linking ethylene oxide exposure to reproductive effects.”
Shoving the swab up your nose to a delicate part of your body every week I would consider chronic exposure. For what? A test that is inaccurate at best.
This type of sterilization is gas sterilization. The product, already packaged, is put into a vacuum chamber and a canister of ETO is punctured and allowed to evaporate into the chamber. It permeates through the packaging and sterilizes the product. Then a vacuum is drawn on the chamber to exhaust the ETO, which permeates back out of the packaging. Perfectly sterile product, later to be used inside the body (e.g., intraocular lenses). This was common practice over 40 years ago and no problems resulted. You are reacting out of ignorance. Things are not "dipped" in ETO. It has a boiling point of 50.7 deg F and room temperature will simply make it evaporate and leak away.
I worked in the prosthetics business and this was the best approach to producing a sterile prosthetic that would have no post-operative reactions. I also had a great appreciation for safety practices of the storable ETO canisters.
This by no means signifies that I endorse the swab. But objection to ETO is not a rational or practical objection. (It may be the only legitimate aspect of the swab.)
Forgive my distrust of the entire medical system and their protocols at this point, but everything should be suspect and questioned at this point, as far as medical practice is concerned.
I know im sounding like a tinfoil hat douche, but how do you KNOW for 100% fact ETO was not causing problems? From the intention of your above comment, it doesn’t sound like you were actually performing legitimate long term testing, were you?
Understand, I fully acknowledge you may be 100% correct. But until we come out of this dark age of lies and deception in the medical/healthcare world. I think we should be careful in pushing anything of current protocol as completely safe.
I actually worked with the stuff. I'm trying to tell you how it is used (in industry). It cannot persist if things are "dunked" in it. It evaporates. It doesn't have anything to do with the doctors; it has to do with the physics and chemistry and techniques of using it for a sterilant.
Can ETO "cause problems"? Duh. It is a STERILANT. By definition, it kills living cells. No one wants any of it to remain in a sterilized product, and it will not remain. Do you think water will remain in anything if the ambient temperature is 20 degrees above its boiling point? Same thing with ETO. There are other things worth worrying about. (You know the artificial lenses that are used for lens replacement surgery? Sterilized by ETO. A half century of no problems with the surgery.)
Hope you’re right👍
Thanks for the information. So there’s no residue of EO on the swab?
I don't see how. If room temperature is 20 degrees higher than the boiling point, it will not stay liquid. It would not stay liquid in its packaging. It would evaporate and pass through the package membrane. Being sterilized by ETO does not mean the product is dipped in ETO.
Thanks, fren, for the clarification.