Glove safety: summary of recent findings and recommendations from health care regulators

Every health care worker should be aware of the quality and deficiencies of gloves in the health care setting. Since the introduction of the human immunodeficiency virus into the health care setting, the medical community's compliance with universal precautions and the standards mandated by the Food and Drug Administration have worked in a mutual effort to enhance the quality of medical gloves considerably. Despite these improvements in protecting health care workers, recent studies on glove integrity before and after use warn against taking the protective aspect of gloves for granted. According to studies, latex gloves provide the best available protection from biohazardous substances, but stricter regulation of glove production and a continual observance of recommendations and regulations by health care regulators are necessary to improve glove quality. This report is designed to reveal the fact regarding the true safety integrity of two main glove types, latex and polyvinyl chloride, through permeability testing with various biomaterials and substances.