A substantial peer-review study confirms the suspicion that passive safety devices increase the level of reduction in sharps injury when compared with early generation active safety technologies such as semi-automatic (push-button) devices or those with manually sliding shields or hinged caps.

This knowledge is of huge significance to sharps users, and also to ancillary staff and waste handlers. Where used sharps are discarded inappropriately, for example left within folds of linen or dropped into thin-walled waste sacks intended only for softy wastes, the protection afforded to those who might be exposed is far greater with a fully automatic sharps safety system. After all, those who might drop a used needle into a sack are probably not going to bother activating a manual safety device beforehand.