May 12, 2004
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute's mercury-ridding efforts yield award
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute has been recognized by Hospitals for a Healthy Environment (H2E) for its success in reducing the use of products with mercury and the release of mercury waste.
Dana-Farber received a 2004 H2E Making Medicine Mercury Free Award to acknowledge its "outstanding efforts to virtually eliminate mercury from the health-care sector" and for – with the other winners – "providing real examples of how hospitals can phase out mercury-containing products while maintaining quality patient care."
Melissa McCullough, CIH, Dana-Farber's manager of environmental compliance and environmental health, accepted the honor on behalf of Dana-Farber at a ceremony along with Director of Environmental Health and Safety Elizabeth Gross, CIH.
In recent years, McCullough and others have focused on replacing mercury-containing products such as thermometers and various laboratory chemicals with safer options. Mercury is a neurotoxin that, even in extremely low levels, can affect human health; the health-care sector is considered a leading source of mercury in the environment.
"Dana-Farber came together to help us do the right thing," says McCullough, who submitted documentation to help earn the recognition. "Everyone from clinical staff to purchasing agents to laboratory safety officers to the administration was on board."
H2E (www.h2e-online.org) is a voluntary program of the American Hospital Association, the Environmental Protection Agency, Health Care Without Harm, and the American Nurses Association. Its goals are to virtually eliminate mercury use in health care by 2005, cut health-care waste in half by 2010, and reduce the use and production of toxic and hazardous substance.
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute is a principal teaching hospital of the Harvard Medical School and is among the leading cancer research and care centers in the United States. It is a founding member of the Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center (DF/HCC), as designated comprehensive cancer center by the National Cancer Institute.
