Safe but toxic: hiding the risks from gas sterilisation of medical plastics
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At HSS 2026, Eloïse Richards and Bruno Strasser presented ‘Safe but Toxic: Hiding the Risks from Gas Sterilisation of Medical Plastics’ as part of Plastic Amnesias I, chaired by Anne Kveim Lie.
The presentation examined how plastics profoundly transformed medicine in the mid-20th century. Owing to their low production cost, they made possible the transition from reusable to disposable devices in health care. Industry promoted single-use plastic devices as inherently hygienic and safe by framing hospital infection as the result of failures in the sterilization of reusable devices. Although this framing was unsupported by existing studies on the causes of hospital infections, industry succeeded in consolidating the idea that the sterility of single-use devices derived from their unique material qualities. In reality, it depended on an invisible technology: ethylene oxide gas sterilisation.
Developed during World War II by the U.S. Army Chemical Corps at Fort Detrick as a toxic agent against bioweapons, ethylene oxide was subsequently adapted as a sterilising agent for plastics that could not withstand standard heat sterilisation. The introduction of gas sterilisation thus enabled the rapid expansion of disposable plastic medical devices. However, the toxicity of ethylene oxide for hospital and industrial workers, as well as for patients, quickly became apparent.
Drawing on trade and hospital journals, industry documents, and U.S. governmental publications, this paper examines the production and invisibilization of knowledge about the health risks of ethylene oxide, and the convergence of interests between the chemical and medical device industries in preventing its regulation. By situating ethylene oxide within the broader history of risk regulation, hospital infrastructures, and the commodification of health, this paper explores the naturalization of plastics in modern health care.
Read more on the double panel at HSS: here.
