Allergic Reactions To Latex Create A Rash Of Lawsuits

ARLINGTON, Texas - Millicent Steffen got over the itching rash. She no longer felt she was suffocating.

In October, Steffen suffered a severe allergic reaction to latex, a form of rubber used to make surgical gloves.

In May, Steffen was terminated from her position as a radiological technologist at Columbia Medical Center of Arlington, Texas - because of the allergy, she says - and the company is not providing her disability coverage.

On June 16, she filed a lawsuit against both Columbia Medical and Johnson & Johnson Medical, which makes the gloves at its Arlington facility.

Steffen is among hundreds of plaintiffs, most of them health-care workers, who have filed suit against Johnson & Johnson, along with other latex-glove makers. The growing rash of litigation has been compared by lawyers to the tobacco and breast-implant lawsuits of recent years, and they say it could force the health-care industry to find alternatives to latex.

Industry spokesmen say the danger is being exaggerated by plaintiffs' attorneys.

"Right now, latex allergy is pretty rare," said Donna Gaidamak, a spokeswoman for manufacturer Allegiance. "The vast majority of health-care workers still wear latex gloves."

Although she recovered from her initial bout with the allergy, Steffen says her medical career is over.

"I am totally disabled," she said. "If I didn't have my husband, I'd be out on the street or living with family."

Paula Peach, spokeswoman for Columbia Medical's North Texas Division, declined to comment on the litigation.

Susan McGann, president of the Delaware Valley Latex Allergy Support Group in Pennsylvania, said the number of latex-allergy cases is ballooning, a byproduct of the AIDS epidemic.

The proliferation of AIDS in the 1980s caused the health-care industry to tighten protections against infection, and latex gloves were put on the hands of medical and dental workers nationwide, McGann said.