|
Top latex producers in Malaysia are unperturbed by attempts by an American hospital to discredit their latex gloves as it is a decades-old issue being resurrected for reasons motivated more by fear of losing markets rather than any real health or medical issue. This follows a ban on latex gloves by Johns Hopkins Hospital in its premises in Baltimore over claims that such gloves cause allergic reactions (anaphylaxis) which could be fatal. However, no deaths have been reported so far.
“The perplexing questions are, why Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore banned the product when FDA did not?” Supermax Corporation Bhds chief executive officer Datuk Stanley Thai, said in response to a Bernama query.
As such, he perceives it as “purely a trade issue rather than technical issue.”
Top Glove Corporation Bhd executive director, Lim Cheong Guan, said the ban was neither new nor unexpected, but believes that there must be a hidden motive for the hospital to resort to such a move.
He said all medical gloves exported to the U.S. were subject to stringent tests by FDA, and the production in the factories follow procedures and standards based on the accreditations and accolades by health authorities from countries which export to the U.S.
“The production lines must also comply with the stringent requirement of the minimum protein content as set up by MRB (Malaysian Rubber Board),” said Lim.
He likened the ban against latex gloves to campaigns to stop palm oil in the 80s mounted by the American Soybean Association mainly due to the latter successfully competing against Americas soya bean oil.
“It is surprising that tobacco is not totally banned, when it has proven to be more harmful to human health,” he said.
Citing figures from Global Trade Atlas, Thai said the U.S. imported 18.4 billion pairs of rubber gloves worth US$1.2 billion in 2006, of which 9.2 billion pairs worth about US$600 million came from Malaysia.
This was a steady growth from 2004 when the U.S. imported 17.6 billion pairs of gloves worth US$1.03 billion, with 8.6 billion pairs worth about US$500 million from Malaysia.
“The reality is, there are many high quality latex gloves available in the market which would not cause any allergic reaction to some sensitive individuals,” Thai said.
Latex protein contained in powder latex gloves were identified as the main cause of allergic reaction to some individuals in the healthcare industry way back in year 1989, he said.
To date, due to advances in rubber technology and continuous technical research, most of the powder latex gloves contain low protein, he said.
“The industry has not had any new reported cases of latex allergy nor any new litigation involving latex allergy since 1995,” he said.
Today, many users in the healthcare industry have switched to using Powder Free Latex Gloves which are almost protein free.
He said the powder free latex glove is not known to cause any allergic reaction to most sensitive individuals.
“Now, Synthetic Nitrile Powder Free gloves also command a growing demand in the healthcare industry. Nitrile Gloves are protein-free, which the Supermax group is also producing in Malaysia,” he said.
As a result, less than 10 percent of the hospitals in Malaysia are using powder latex gloves as most of them have switched to using either Powder Free, low Protein Latex Gloves or Synthetic Nitrile Powder Free Gloves at the moment, he said.
“Nitrile Powder Free gloves are 20 percent to 25 percent more costly than Powder Free Latex Gloves.
Any ban in the usage of high quality latex gloves would mean that the hospitals would incur a 20-25 percent increase in costs for their healthcare consumables,” Thai said.
On whether other hospitals and medical institutions in the U.S. would follow Johns Hopkins, he said: “Yes, there would be some hospitals taking similar action in the future” but there are more than 10,000 hospitals operating in the U.S.
Therefore, the percentage would be small especially now that the new National budget for the healthcare under Bush Administration is being cut or reduced, he said.
“Using Powder Free, low protein latex gloves would help the hospitals save substantially on the costs for disposable medical items.
“But, Supermax is ready to ramp up production of Nitrile powder Free should the demand for the synthetic Nitrile gloves continue to grow,” he said.
It also anticipates that the demand for Synthetic Nitrile Glove to continue to grow and faster if more hospitals decide to ban the usage of latex gloves, he said.
Currently, the company does not supply directly to any hospitals in the U.S. but sells them to their customers who are medical distributors who then distributes the gloves to the hospitals. Supermax also sells to the dental, pharmaceutical, scientific laboratory, food services industries and the industrial market.
The company sold less than 15 percent of powder gloves to the U.S. market last year, as the markets that it serves mainly require powder free medical grade latex gloves and synthetic powder free medical gloves.
“Therefore, the ban of usage of latex gloves by Johns Hopkins will not have any negative impact on Supermax Group,” he stressed.
Top Gloves Lim said if the ban was due to medical reasons, FDA would be the first to ban the usage of latex gloves in the U.S.
And, if the impact of latex glove allergy is really that bad as claimed, FDA will have initiated the ban on all hospitals, he said.
“We believe there are other reasons behind it which we are not aware of,” he said. Top Glove might be indirectly supplying gloves to Johns Hopkins through its importers or distributors.
However, he said other hospitals and medical institutions are unlikely to copy the ban.
“The ban only applies to Johns Hopkins hospitals which is a small percentage of total hospitals in the U.S.,” he said.
Lim said he does not expect any reduction in sales of latex gloves to the U.S. so far.
He said the usage of nitrile gloves will subsequently be bad for the environment as nitrile gloves were not bio-degradable, unlike latex gloves.
Besides latex gloves to the U.S. , the company was selling other synthetic gloves such as nitrile and vinyl gloves.
“Top Glove produces based on customers requirements and orders. If there is more demand for nitrile gloves, the production lines in Malaysia are interchangeable and can produce nitrile or latex gloves,” he said.
The company is selling to more than 180 countries worldwide, with increased focus on developing countries where demand growth rate for gloves is much higher than the U.S., Lim said. |
