Lawmakers Plan Tighter Rules on Medical Waste

Responding to a growing number of incidents of infectious medical wastes washing up on Southern California beaches or surfacing in garbage, lawmakers announced Friday that they plan to push for tighter regulations governing disposal of medical refuse.

Assemblyman Tom Hayden (D-Santa Monica) said at a news conference that he has introduced legislation intended “to make sure that we have a safe procedure that extends to every producer of hazardous medical waste and that imposes serious penalties for violations.”

State Sen. Art Torres (D-Los Angeles), meanwhile, announced at a special meeting in San Diego that also he plans to sponsor legislation to address problems in this area next year. Torres made his remarks after the meeting of the Senate Toxics and Public Safety Management Committee, which he heads.

During the two-hour session, public health officials from San Diego and Orange counties called for elimination of a state exemption for small operations producing less than 220 pounds of infectious medical waste each month.

In the past six weeks, the two counties have experienced many incidents of medical waste washing up on beaches.

Although San Diego County recently approved emergency regulations lifting the exemption in the county’s unincorporated areas, county health officials and lawmakers say the tighter standards should be put in place statewide to provide a more consistent approach to the problem.

The Hayden proposal’s most sweeping provision would have that effect by extending the existing disposal requirements to small generators, such as small clinics, physicians’ offices and other unlicensed health facilities. Those who produce fewer than 220 pounds a month of potentially infectious medical waste such as hypodermic needles, vials of blood and gauze are exempt from a host of disposal and reporting requirements under state law.

The measure would also double the mandatory minimum fine to $2,000 and permit felony prosecution of anyone who knowingly disposes of medical waste illegally. It further seeks to toughen enforcement by giving local sanitation officials the power to inspect medical facilities’ waste disposal practices.

Hayden was joined Friday by Santa Monica sanitation officials, who applauded the measure as protecting them from such threats as AIDS contamination.

“We’ve had a series of incidents in Santa Monica where small medical groups, doctors’ offices, have been dumping blood, needles and other medical waste into their normal trash,” Santa Monica Maintenance Manager Neil Miller said. “It’s a serious problem.”

Other well-publicized episodes of medical waste washing ashore have occurred in Orange and San Diego counties in recent weeks. More serious problems plagued the New Jersey shoreline earlier this year.

Opposition Expected

Hayden’s bill is expected to spark some opposition. A spokeswoman for the politically powerful California Medical Assn. declined to comment on it Friday. But Hayden indicated that he expects some resistance from clinics or physicians “who have established habits” for waste disposal that the law would prohibit.

He said he expects support from cities and counties. But Shirley Fannin, associate deputy director for disease control for the Los Angeles County Health Services Department, urged lawmakers at Friday’s San Diego hearing not to “plunge into new legislation without first thinking about the impact” on the health-care system.

Health authorities also told the committee that the legal definition of what constitutes infectious waste needs to be more narrowly focused. They also called for closer inspection of landfills for waste-dumping violations and suggested new regulations be hammered out to allow large hospitals to accept the material from smaller generators for processing.

Finally, they suggested that hospitals be required to lock dumpsters containing medical debris so children or salvagers cannot unwittingly sift through dangerous materials.

“This is possibly the tip of the iceberg,” Robert Merryman, Orange County environmental health director, warned in an interview. “With infectious waste, we can’t take a chance.”

But some public and private health officials suggested during the meeting that the push for tighter regulations may be an overreaction to a problem that is more one of aesthetics than health.

“Being offended or frightened by something is different than being threatened by something,” Fannin said.

Fannin suggested that the bulk of the medical waste washing onto beaches and turning up in dumpsters or landfills does not threaten public health.

Marguerite Jackson, epidemiology unit director at UC San Diego Medical Center, said there is no evidence suggesting medical waste has transmitted illness.

Warning that lawmakers need to take care against “over-regulating ourselves into a position where we expend enormous amounts of money,” Jackson said most medical waste is actually less dangerous than household trash such as disposable diapers and soiled sanitary napkins.

In an interview after the meeting, Torres suggested that public education needs to be a prime component of the debate over infectious medical waste, saying the debris being found on beaches in recent weeks may be more “a threat to our sensibilities than our health.”

But he agreed that regulations on small generators of medical waste need to be tightened, although he remained unsure whether the current exemption of 220 pounds a month should be lowered or simply eliminated.

Torres also said he expects to introduce new legislation that would narrow the definition of what makes up infectious wastes.

The State Lands Commission, which has jurisdictions over coastal waters, also announced this week that the first of its three upcoming hearings on ocean pollution will focus on medical waste dumping. It is scheduled for Tuesday.