This isn’t specific to East Cobb, but there’s been a lot of interest since the news first broke: the toxic emissions coming from a medical device sterilization lab in Smyrna have prompted Cobb commissioner Bob Ott to hold a town hall meeting on the subject later this month.
It’s scheduled for 7 p.m. Monday, Aug. 19 at the Cobb Civic Center (548 S. Marietta Parkway), which ought to be big enough to accommodate many of those who couldn’t get into a previous public meeting last week held by legislators from the area.
Since then, Cobb public officials have called for the Sterigenics Atlanta lab to be shut down pending independent testing. Late Friday, the Georgia Environmental Protection Division approved a plan to reduce those emissions.
The substance is called ethylene oxide, an invisible, odorless toxin that’s used to sterilize around half of all medical products that require it. It’s also been linked to higher cancer rates in areas near facilities that emanate the gas.
But according to Georgia Health News and WebMD, which initially reported about the Sterigenics case, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency didn’t notify the state of three ethylene oxide hotspots it detected with higher cancer risks in Georgia for more than a year.
The Smyrna area near the Sterigenics lab is one of those hotspots (essentially they’re census tracts). Some nearby residents also have been protesting at the Sterigenics lab.
Ott said at what he’s calling his “community meeting” that federal EPA officials and others from the Georgia EPD and the Centers for Disease Control will be on hand.
He’s expected to introduce an agenda item at the commission’s Aug. 13 meeting but hasn’t specified what that might be.
More links about the Sterigenics case can be found here.
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