"EPA Wades Into Battle Over Hospital Disinfectant"

"U.S. EPA is interceding in a New Jersey public-health flap that could have national implications, ordering a hospital services company to stop disinfecting its ambulances with finely misted pesticides after a local union complained of workers falling ill.

In an order last Tuesday to Monmouth-Ocean Hospital Services Corp., or MONOC, EPA's Region 2 office in New York forbade the emergency-medicine company from using a "micro-mist" system that sprays "a sub-micron fog" of antimicrobial chemicals inside its ambulances. The EPA action validated complaints from a local union that as many as 100 MONOC paramedics it represents were sickened by on-the-job exposure to the misted pesticides."

Elana Schor reports for Greenwire January 10, 2011.