Ranking Member Cassidy Blasts Biden Policy Threatening Americans’ Access to Health Care

WASHINGTON – Today, U.S. Senator Bill Cassidy, M.D. (R-LA), ranking member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, blasted the Biden administration’s final rule that threatens Americans’ access to health care to pursue activist environmentalism. Specifically, a new Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulation restricts the use of ethylene oxide (EtO), which is used to sterilize 50 percent of all medical devices and 95 percent of all surgical kits in the United States.  

 “This irresponsible rule threatens to create disastrous health care shortages,” said Dr. Cassidy. “President Biden’s EPA is putting American lives in danger in pursuit of abstract environmental activism.” 

EtO is the only sterilizer available for certain devices that cannot be sterilized with heat or radiation, such as endoscopes, syringes, and heart valves. This policy will have a devastating impact on domestic medical device manufacturing in the United States and will exacerbate medical product shortages, threatening the lives of Americans who need access to these critical supplies.  

Last July, Cassidy wrote a letter in opposition to the proposed regulation warning that the EPA failed to address numerous concerns from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) on the impacts of its proposed rule.  

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