Medical Supply Chain and Public Health

The EPA under Administrator Lee Zeldin has proposed weakening pollution limits for ethylene oxide (EtO)—a sterilant used on roughly half of U.S. medical devices—and the proposal would reverse a specific Biden-era finding of high cancer risks at EtO manufacturing and sterilization facilities. Zeldin argued the Biden standards "actively threaten" sterilization capacity and domestic supply chains, while public-health groups like the American Lung Association called the rollback "unacceptable," citing EPA’s 2016 classification of EtO as a human carcinogen and documented elevated lifetime cancer risks, particularly in minority communities near affected plants.