America knows best! Really??

We are repeatedly instructed by the Environment Agency to follow the American standards for aspects of clinical waste management and in particular waste treatment validations. The problem is, certain individuals within the Environment Agency have been bedazzled by the American way, and no doubt by their expenses-paid trips to see for themselves.

Science goes out of the window, and dare not be used in objection to a rigid regimen of regulation since the American way is THE way. Even when it goes wrong and exceptions arise, a quiet diversion is approved ‘on the nod’ but rarely discussed, handed down as if a gift of the gods to be accepted with grace. And don’t dare mention that it contradicts all that might have gone before.

But the generality of “America knows best” is not a sentiment to which I can concur.

The latest cones from the American Diabetes Association and their magazine Diabetes Forecast, The Healthy Living Magazine. Noting that there are no national regulations to tell people how and where to get rid of sharps, the magazine goes on to explain how to make your own sharps container. It’s better than nothing, but that’s not good enough.

We should not overlook the reality that in the absence of any better sharps bin product, this approach is better than nothing. But the standards of clinical waste management across US vary considerably, and much will make your toes curl.

This latest ‘recommendation’ for a DIY sharps bin shows how poor standards of US waste safety really are.

America knows best?  Not always!

 

 

 

 

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