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Get the Facts
Protecting lives here and across the country
B. Braun Medical Inc. has been safely manufacturing high-quality medical devices in the Lehigh Valley for over 40 years.
Our dedication to safety and sustainability is evident in every product we produce and every patient touched by our medical devices. It’s also clear in our commitment to protecting the health and safety of our employees, our neighbors and our community.
- Our life-sustaining medical products are used to treat millions of patients in hospitals across the U.S. every year.
- The more than 2,400 finished medical products we manufacture in Allentown, PA are used in the treatment of heart disease, cancer, stroke, diabetes and many other conditions.
- We have invested more than $200 million at our Allentown facility to expand our ability to serve patients and healthcare providers.
The facts about our use of ethylene oxide
As noted by the FDA, for many medical devices including ours, sterilization with ethylene oxide (EtO) is the only method that effectively sterilizes and does not damage the device during the sterilization process.1
Our use of EtO is closely regulated by federal and state government agencies, and the emissions from our Allentown facility are far less than the amount allowed under our permit issued by the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection.
As a result of voluntary steps we have taken beyond what is required by regulation, emissions of EtO from our Allentown facility have significantly declined in recent years.
For example, in 2020 we voluntarily installed a new emission control system that has demonstrated during third-party testing an EtO destruction and removal efficiency of more than 99.9% for the main sterilization process.
About half of all medical devices—more than 20 billion—are sterilized using EtO each year in the U.S.2
At B. Braun Medical, nothing is more important than the health and safety of our employees, our community and the patients who depend on our products.
Et0 in the atmosphere
Ethylene oxide is naturally present in the environment and is created by various sources, including plants and animals. The human body also converts ethylene to ethylene oxide and emits it during respiration.4
Health and safety come first
B. Braun Medical has a long-standing history of putting the health and safety of our employees and community first.
Our families live and work here. We would not operate our facility if we believed it created an unsafe environment for our employees or neighbors.
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