Study attempts to clear the air about Rx pill dust dangers
DREXEL, Mo. —Does the air in a typical pharmacy pose a risk to employees?
That was the question raised by a research team that looked at the air quality in some U.S. pharmacies for an industry-sponsored report. The study’s aim: to assess the potential health risks to pharmacy staff and customers arising from airborne pill dust generated by the dispensing process, and particularly by robotic dispensing systems.
The research was conducted by Missouri-based AlburtyLab, and was funded by Script-Pro. Perhaps not surprisingly, ScriptPro was given high marks by researchers, who found that the company’s robotic dispensing machines emitted no detectable concentrations of airborne pill dust during the dispensing process.
On the other hand, researchers did find fault with dispensing robots using compressed air or vacuum pressure to dispense pills. Those systems, they concluded, generated “an increase in the concentration of airborne respirable particles” during their operation in the pharmacies where air samples were taken.
Even pharmacies that did not use a robotic dispensing system were found to produce slightly higher concentrations of airborne pill dust during the mechanical dispensing process, the report added.
The study focused on tiny, “respirable” drug-compound dust particles that are less than 2.5 microns in size—invisible to the naked eye and found in the air of some pharmacies in the study. In their report, researchers called them “of special concern…because the small size of PM-2.5 particles allows them to penetrate to the deepest parts of the lungs and to be quickly absorbed into the bloodstream.
“Our research indicates that there is no defined safe level for these types of particles,” the report stated. “Secondly, most of the drug compounds dispensed in pharmacies are not designed to be inhaled.”
In urban settings, the researchers noted, high concentrations of these absorbable particles in the air “have been shown to cause adverse health effects. Generally it is believed that the risk of exposure to indoor air emissions is increased by a factor of 10 for each of the following: proximity, constant exposure and constrained dispersion.
“Because typical heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems use loose-weave air filters that are approximately 40 percent efficient for removal of particles with an AD of 0.2 microns, very fine pill dust can be recirculated throughout the pharmacy…”
That conclusion points to installing better filters in the pharmacy’s heating and air conditioning vents as a possible solution.