Sterigenics Gives Up on Willowbrook Facility

Device sterilization firm Sterigenics has called it quits on its beleaguered Willowbrook, Illinois facility, which found itself in the crosshairs of community activists and cancer patients over its ethylene oxide emissions.

The facility was ordered by the Environmental Protection Agency to cease sterilization operations in March for hundreds of devices over worries that its ethylene oxide emissions caused higher cancer rates in the area, creating potential device shortage concerns.

The company said that while it complied with regulations and was cleared to implement new safety controls at the facility, the state’s “unstable legislative and regulatory landscape” led to the decision to shutter it.