Hayden Moves to Get Rules Toughened for Medical Waste Disposal

Responding to a growing number of incidents of infectious medical wastes washing up on the state’s beaches and surfacing in its garbage, two Los Angeles-area 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 that he also plans to sponsor legislation to address the problem next year. Torres made his remarks after a special meeting in San Diego of the Senate Toxics and Public Safety Management Committee, which he chairs.

The Hayden proposal’s most sweeping provision would extend the current disposal regulations to cover small clinics, physicians’ offices and other unlicensed health facilities. Facilities that produce less 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.

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 anticipated some resistance from clinics or physicians “who have established habits” for waste disposal that the law would prohibit.

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

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

The State Lands Commission, which has jurisdiction 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.

Staff writer Eric Bailey in San Diego also contributed to this story.