Robert L. Ehrlich, Jr. form letter to constituent, 2000

FIELD(letterdate) FIELD(nameline) FIELD(title) FIELD(organizationl ) FIELD(organization2) FIELD(addressl) FIELD(address2) FIELD(address3) FIELD(address4) IFNOTBLANK(city)FIELD(city), FIELD(state) FIELD(zip9)ENDIF Dear FIELD(salutation2b): Thank you for contacting me regarding H.R. 1899, the Health Care Worker Needlestick Prevention Act. I appreciate knowing your views on this issue. I believe it is important to protect health care workers in hospitals subject to federal laws from preventable needlestick injuries. That is why I am a co-sponsor of this legislation. You may be pleased to know the State of Maryland has also enacted needlestick legislation. As you may know, the technology exists today to prevent most of the more than 800,000 needlesticks that occur yearly to our nation’s health care workers. H.R. 1899 protects health care workers from accidental needlesticks by requiring the use of safe needles and needleless systems in the health care arena. This legislation amends the Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA) to require that safe needle technology be used in place of current unsafe needles. Specifically, it amends OSHA’s bloodborne pathogens (BBP) standard to require that employers utilize needleless systems and sharps with engineering controls to prevent the spread of BBP. This legislation recognizes that safe needle technology will not be immediately, universally available and appropriate for all uses in the health care arena. Accordingly, H.R. 1 899 provides for an exceptions process if an employer can demonstrate circumstances in which the technology does not promote employee safety, interferes with patient safety, interferes with the success of a medical procedure, or is not commercially available in the marketplace. Additionally, this bill requires employers to develop written exposure control plans to identify and select existing needleless systems and sharps with engineered sharps protections and other methods of preventing the spread of bloodborne pathogens. Currently, H.R. 1899 is being considered before the House Committees on Education and the Workforce, Commerce, and Ways and Means. On September 14, 2000, Representative Cass Ballenger (R-NC) introduced H.R. 5178,