Sharps safety gloves, and the ballistic panels in trousers, are crucially important in so many ways. Used by the Police, prison and security services and, of course, by all of those working with healthcare wastes, they are often the only hope of protection against sharps injury.

Several different types of glove are available, with just 2 or 3 main supplies each having their own glove type. These differ by the conformation of stitching, flexibility & tactility, and by the ease of fit together with the extent to which the cuff extends to cover and protect the wrist and lower par of the forearm.

The gloves are expensive and in use may not last too long before replacement is necessary. They often allow penetration of fluids along stitch lines, while others are so impervious that the hands suffer with excess sweat. And those stitch lines can be particularly troublesome since the stiff raised fold of material and heavy stitching between the fingers can cause rubbing and chaffing that breaks skin surfaces ad risks infection when those areas later become contaminated with materials for the waste being handled.

So, how do we choose the best glove? The one giving the very best protection at the keenest price, providing tactility and comfort with enhanced protection? The ones that will prevent injury and eliminate the risk of infection? The one that enhances the health & safety of the waste handler

It is claimed that current standardized test methods do not correctly evaluate the resistance of protective gloves to these punctures and do not take into account the effect of the presence of a hand inside the glove. IRSST, a safety research organization located in Montreal, Canada, has published a new study in response to joint requests to identify gloves that afford adequate needlestick protection, to develop a method for characterizing the actual resistance of gloves to puncture by very pointed objects such as needles, with this method later becoming the subject of a standard.

The study will determine the degree of dexterity and sensitivity that these gloves offer to workers. The data collected in the IRSST study will help users choose the puncture-resistant gloves most appropriate for their task, thus promoting their wear and helping to reduce the number of injuries to workers’ hands. These results will be exportable to other activity sectors, including the hospital environment, and will be useful to manufacturers for improving their products.

The study results make interesting reading. We should look forward to open and constructive discussion between manufacturers and users, to formulate from these data a new ISO or equivalent standard. Regrettably, there is likely to be some attempts at stalling of this process, if company X believes that the test protocol is favorable to the competitor Y but not to their own product. We can understand this stance, but in the absence of a better proposal it should be hoped that a standard will be defined, to provide the best glove offering comfort and enhanced performance with protection of sharps injury.

Agreeing standards proposals can be a hugely troublesome process. Large companies can flood the process with their suppliers and contractors to enhance their vote, while others seek to over-represent the views of their sponsor sometimes without the integrity to admit the conflict of interest that supports their particular role. Still other abuses exist, at at BSi, where those on the assessment committees have failed to manage properly an open and all-embracing consultation process on the basis that asking the various stakeholder groups ‘can secure views and comments that are not particularly helpful’!

Clearly, all is not well in the world of the international standards organisations. However, let’s hope that this latest report that proposes enhanced test methods for sharps protection gloves does not get buried beneath the fog of vested interests and abuse of process.