U.S. Seeks Rules to Protect Health Workers From AIDS, Hepatitis B

Employers of the nation’s estimated 5.3 million health care workers would be required to protect them from blood-borne diseases such as AIDS and hepatitis B under new regulations proposed Monday by the Labor Department.

“Health care professionals are truly on the front line,” Labor Secretary Ann Dore McLaughlin said in announcing the proposals. “They’re working to contain the problem. We must ensure that they are not victims of it.”

The department’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration proposed that all employers be required to adopt safety programs using a strategy called “universal precautions,” in which all blood and bodily fluids are presumed infectious and handled accordingly. Under that approach, the fluids are placed in leakproof containers or color-coded bags or labeled with a clear warning.

McLaughlin said the new standards would affect health care workers at 620,000 sites. The proposals are now subject to public comment and could take up to two years to become final.

The new rules would require safety training and annual re-education of health care workers, as well as cleaning and maintenance employees, laundry workers, students and clinical staff--anyone who may be exposed to potentially dangerous body fluids while working in a health care setting.

Further, employers will be required to provide their workers with protective clothing, such as rubber gloves, masks and fluid-proof aprons, and must provide free hepatitis B vaccinations to workers who are regularly exposed to blood and body fluids.

Labor groups and others who have been pushing for such action applauded the proposed regulations, although some complained that they were too long in coming.

“We’re very pleased to see that they’re finally coming out--we’ve been waiting for them,” said Donna Richardson, assistant director of congressional and agency relations for the American Nurses’ Assn., which represents the nation’s 1.8 million nurses.