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At the Ecology Center

Ecology Center Helps Organize CleanMed 2004

June/July Issue, 2004

Attendees at CleanMed 2004, including Ecology Center Environmental Health Project staff Tracey Easthope, Mary Beth Doyle, and Rebecca Meuninck, spent several days in Philadelphia last month hearing about the latest in greening health care.

CleanMed is the premiere healthcare conference on environmentally preferable purchasing and green buildings. The gathering is organized every 18 months by a coalition of organizations devoted to greening the healthcare industry.

Conference goers attended workshops and panels on various topics including greening medical equipment and practices, getting rid of PVC and mercury in health care, improving indoor air quality, greening the health care food chain, reducing antibiotic use in livestock, increasing the use of organic food, finding alternatives to the use of brominated flame retardants, and other examples of purchasing products that are safer for patients, workers, and the environment.

Attendees also had the opportunity to view environmentally preferable products and services on display in the exhibit hall. Forty vendors showed an array of products including non-PVC IV bags, greener cleaners, alternative cleaning and waste disposal technologies, and environmentally friendly building materials.

CleanMed 2004 featured keynote speakers who are leaders in identifying emerging environmental problems and promoting safer alternatives. Dr. John Peterson Myers is co-author of “Our Stolen Future,” a book on endocrine disrupting chemicals, and Dr. Terry Collins of Carnegie Mellon University is at the forefront of defining and implementing green chemistry.

CleanMed has grown considerably since its inception in 2001. CleanMed 2004 was just the third meeting of the conference yet it drew over 350 hospital administrators, waste managers, purchasing managers, nurses, and other practitioners, as well as leading health care architects and designers.

For more information on CleanMed, visit: www.CleanMed.org.

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