Trial over sterilization chemical exposure due to start in Georgia

ATLANTA — The first trial in hundreds of Georgia lawsuits alleging people were injured by exposure to a chemical used to sterilize medical products is due to start Monday in Gwinnett County.

Retired truck driver Gary Walker, 75, claims his decades of exposure to ethylene oxide at and around a sterilization facility in Covington caused him to develop non-Hodgkin lymphoma, a type of cancer.

Walker’s case and hundreds of others pending in Georgia courts allege the owners and operators of sterilization facilities in the state are liable for a range of injuries caused by their prolonged use of ethylene oxide to sterilize medical equipment. The cases allege emissions from these facilities and stored sterilized products cause cancer and other problems.

The companies being sued in Georgia, including Sterigenics, Becton Dickinson and KPR, contend they operate safely within state and federal laws and regulations. They argue ethylene oxide is the only viable sterilization method for many medical devices.

Though ethylene oxide exposure lawsuits have been pending in Georgia for several years, none have made it to trial.

Jury selection in Walker’s trial is scheduled to begin Monday morning in Gwinnett County State Court.

“I think it’s definitely something that all Georgia citizens should be looking at because these are some really important issues,” Darren Penn, an attorney for Walker, said about the trial.

Sterigenics was about to face its first Georgia trial in ethylene oxide exposure cases — tied to its Cobb County sterilization facility — when it settled that case and more than 70 others for $35 million in October 2023.

Penn said two of his other clients, Gena and Charles McLendon, had the second ethylene oxide exposure case in Georgia to be scheduled for trial. He said that case also settled on the eve of trial, in July 2024.

Penn said his firm is involved in 272 of the 402 ethylene oxide exposure cases pending in Georgia against Becton Dickinson, or BD, as well as some of the similar cases against Sterigenics and KPR in relation to their Georgia facilities.

The result of a jury trial in Walker’s case could influence any potential global settlement discussions among the parties involved in these types of cases in the state, Penn said.

“It’s just like all the other ethylene oxide cases that are being tried across the country, everybody’s paying attention to what’s going on in them,” he said. “And there have been varying outcomes. Some on behalf of defendants and some on behalf of plaintiffs.”

According to the lawsuit, Walker is a retired truck driver who worked at and lived close to the BD sterilization facility in Covington from 1970 through 1999. Case filings show the facility was opened in 1967 by medical product manufacturer C.R. Bard, which was acquired by BD in 2017.

Walker loaded his truck with products sterilized at the facility and stored in warehouses several times a week, Penn said.

Walker also lived in Covington near the sterilization plant and warehouses from 1991 through his cancer diagnosis in 2017, he said in case filings. He claims his medical expenses to date exceed $1 million.

Walker, whose cancer is in remission, claims Bard and BD’s Covington operations emitted large amounts of ethylene oxide into the atmosphere during the time he lived and worked nearby. He alleges direct ethylene oxide emissions from the Covington facility were sometimes “completely uncontrolled.”

Ethylene oxide was also emitted into the air from sterilized products stored at various warehouses in the Covington community, Walker alleges. He claims Bard and BD knew for decades about the dangers of ethylene oxide exposure but failed to monitor the risk and warn community members about it.

Representatives of BD, which is headquartered in New Jersey, did not immediately respond to an inquiry about the case.

In case filings, BD denies any wrongdoing or liability, and argues ethylene oxide emissions from its Covington operations are safe. It says Walker can’t prove his cancer was caused by exposure to ethylene oxide, which is made naturally in the body and exists everywhere.

“The low levels of ethylene oxide around the Covington facility are within safe limits,” BD said in a recent case filing. “To this day, the defendants sterilize medical devices with ethylene oxide at the Covington facility with full approval by all relevant regulatory agencies.”

The Georgia Environmental Protection Division said in 2019 the Covington and Smyrna sterilization facilities owned by BD and Sterigenics, respectively, are within census tracts identified by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as having potentially elevated lifetime cancer risks.

BD said in case filings its Covington operations have been permitted by the Georgia EPD since at least 1974. The company says on its website that its Covington and Madison facilities in Georgia safely sterilize more than 375 million medical devices each year.

Penn said the amount and duration of exposure to ethylene oxide will be a key factor in the liability cases. He said Walker’s exposure is among the highest he’s seen.

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