Wow, can you imagine trying to fix dry eyes by using eye drops, only to have to get them surgically removed to prevent your death? Going blind over eye drops? 4 deaths even…
You see those videos of workers in India doing barefoot work making pots and small metal parts. Turns out that’s everywhere, including your eye drops.
I’m sure the companies responsible won’t have any consequences, but I wish they would. That’s so incredibly reckless and who knows what else we use every day that’s manufactured this carelessly.
Bare feet are a bit clickbaity on the headline. That alone doesn’t mean much, but when it happens on a area where you should have full protective gear at the (supposed to be) sterile part of the manufacturing it’s of course a big deal. But it would be equally big deal if you just stroll there in your jeans and t-shirt with boots you stepped on a dog shit on your way to work. And even then it’s not even close of being the biggest issue on manufacturing where they constantly ignored all of the safety protocols, including ignoring test results which told them that the product is faulty.
Ideally if it’s a sterile product it’ll never be in contact with the same atmosphere the worker is in, so clothes policy is mostly for the protection of the worker.
Not really. People shed skin and hair constantly, and the small particles float in the air and distribute themselves throughout the volume. And your bacteria are along for the ride. One of the functions of the protective suits, gloves and hairnets is to contain these these particles and thus keep the air as clean as possible. When combined with lamina airflow, positive room pressure and other techniques, it keeps contamination down hugely.
I don’t really see how people chosing to be barefoot has anything to do with their ability to make eye-drops, unless the aforementioned people are using their feet to do it
Being barefoot could potentially introduce extra risk of contamination from shedding skin cells; this may or may not matter depending on which part of the plant they’re working at. In clean room environments, people usually wear special clothing that prevent cross contamination; these include special coat, hair netting, and extra layer of covering around the shoes. But if the said employee works in the office on administrative tasks, far away from clean areas of production, who cares?
I see. I figuered as long as they’d wear hair nets, masks, coats and gloves it shouldn’t matter what’s going on with their feet- but I suppose that could make sense? Idk, It still feels like a strange thing to be fixated on…
I work in a hospital pharmacy, and I had to compound some custom eye drops for a patient the other day. I have to wear a hair net, beard net, shoe covers, a gown, and sterile gloves to even enter the cleanroom. Being barefoot in a cleanroom for sterile manufacturing is a hard no.
I’d think the reason for foot protection in a hospital setting is more to protect you from their illnesses, or drop damage (say, a needle or other sharp object)
I suppose I must confess. I’ve worked in dental, so I’m familair with sterilization proceedures/ ppe. I remember learning to wear hard shoes (hardly any one does in reality) to avoid what I mentioned above
It’s strange that employees would be barefoot, but I still don’t really see how feet are any more dangerous than any other part of the body, especially given that they’re surely not handling the materials with their feet!
I can accept that I’m wrong, it just seems strange to highlight the bare feet as a primary issue unless somehow the bacteria in the drops are a type most often found on feet
Most surprisingly, the inspectors observed barefoot employees working in a sterile area of the facility, where they should have been wearing shoes—plus gowns, gloves, and shoe booties. (The barefoot workers were also not wearing gowns or gloves.) A production manager puzzlingly told FDA inspectors that shoeless work is “standard practice.”
They were supposed to cover everything including the feet.
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