AUGUSTA, Ga. (AP) – An Augusta company that uses ethylene oxide to sterilize medical instruments is being sued by residents, the latest such suit in Georgia.
The Augusta Chronicle reports the lawsuit by 20 current and former Augusta residents claims a plant operated by Kendall Patient Recovery emitted the cancer-causing gas, putting them at risk.
At least two other such lawsuits have been filed in metro Atlanta, one against Covington-based Becton Dickinson and one against Smyrna-based Sterigenics.
One of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, filed in July, blames the Augusta plant for her breast cancer diagnosis in 1999. She lived 5 and 1/2 miles (9 kilometers) from Kendall Patient Recovery.
“These individuals have been unknowingly inhaling ethylene oxide on a routine and continuous basis for decades,” attorneys wrote in lawsuit. “Now they are suffering from a variety of cancers, miscarriages, birth defects, and other life-altering health effects from their continuous exposure to ethylene oxide.”