Chemicals in surgical gloves get a bad rap, but they are not always the bad guy. What challenges and opportunities drive the future of medical glove development?
Can we create medical gloves without chemicals – and better yet, do we need to?
Allergies, standards and innovation all play significant roles in the development of medical and surgical gloves.
In this podcast
Dr. Haydn Williams dives into the specifics of how latex allergies have shaped glove manufacturing, how standards help measure various glove properties — including residual chemicals — and what this means in practice.
Standards and measures
Dr. Haydn Williams says no — in fact, it makes more sense to apply standardisation to medical gloves in order to test and report residual chemicals.
Chemicals yes, accelerators no
Medical gloves without chemical accelerators may be possible, but chemicals are here to stay — and they aren’t the bad guys. They’re in the glove for a reason.
Refocus
Preserving the properties of gloves that practitioners — especially surgeons — rely on will require manufacturers to focus on removing chemicals that may cause allergic reactions, exploring techniques to reduce chemical content in the final product and continuing to innovate manufacturing processes to produce gloves where accelerators are eliminated.
