Product Description

According to publicly filed U.S. asbestos personal-injury and wrongful-death litigation records, American Sterilizer Company — universally referenced as AMSCO in pre-1980s hospital and laboratory catalogs and later folded into the STERIS Corporation lineage — allegedly manufactured, distributed, and sold hospital and laboratory steam sterilizers, jacketed autoclaves, and cabinet sterilizers fitted with woven chrysotile asbestos-fabric door gaskets and asbestos-braided steam-line packing. Plaintiffs alleged that the door gasket sat in a channel around the perimeter of the pressure-vessel door and formed the primary steam seal each time the vessel was closed and pressurized to 121 degrees Celsius at 15 psi.

Plaintiffs alleged in publicly filed litigation that AMSCO sterilizers were the dominant hospital central-supply and clinical-lab autoclave brand in North America for most of the 20th century, and that the same product line was widely installed in university microbiology and biology labs, pharmaceutical development labs, and industrial R&D sterile-work benches. Plaintiffs alleged the door gasket was a consumable service item — hardened, cracked, and burned by cycle after cycle of saturated steam and dry heat — and that periodic maintenance required scraping the old gasket out of the channel with a putty knife or screwdriver, wire-brushing the seat clean, cutting fresh asbestos rope or ribbon to length, and seating it in place. Plaintiffs alleged those steps, together with the periodic repacking of steam-jacket valve stems and inlet/drain shaft seals, released respirable chrysotile fibers into the breathing zone of the central-supply worker, clinical lab technician, or biomedical repair technician performing the work.

Workers Exposed

Plaintiffs alleged occupational asbestos exposure from AMSCO autoclave asbestos gaskets and steam-line packing among the following populations:

  • Hospital and clinical lab technicians operating and maintaining AMSCO autoclaves and cabinet sterilizers
  • Central-supply and sterile-processing staff at hospitals, teaching hospitals, and clinical research centers
  • Biomedical equipment repair technicians who serviced hospital and lab sterilizers
  • University and college laboratory technicians in microbiology, biology, and biochemistry teaching labs
  • Graduate students and postdoctoral researchers preparing sterile media, glassware, and instruments
  • Pharmaceutical development lab chemists doing sterile compounding, formulation, and cell-culture work
  • Industrial R&D lab chemists running sterile bench work
  • Lab-equipment maintenance technicians who scraped and re-packed door channels and steam-line valve stems