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The Prevention And Health Administration

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AIDS epidemic in the 90s posed a huge risk for nurses who assisted in routines, which required needles. Numerous other diseases also follow this needle stick infections. Besides the risks that involve losing the lives of the nurses, the financial loss of such infection is estimated to be $400 to $1 billion per year. Due to this problem, several agencies attempted to set health regulations to prevent further infection cases. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) required hospitals and nurses to make safe needle containers, prohibiting practice of recapping needles by one hand, and to provide information to prevent infection cases. However, this regulation was disputed due to the limit that it sets, making emergency cases difficult address as quickly as possible. Dr. Janine Jaegger argued that the focus should be shifted to product design that can help nurses and that provides safety. The Department of Labor and Department of Health and Human Services agreed to the idea and stated that engineering control should be used to reduce worker exposure to harmful substances (293). This idea has a legitimate support since articles in 1984 and 1985 indicated high alarms on number of diseases infections due to the design of the needle sticks. 70% of the needle sticks and syringes in the US were produced and manufactured by Becton Dickinson. They nevertheless manufactured the old version of the syringe regardless of the risk because they knew that to create a completely

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