More Silver Paper Choices for Medical Professionals

Following their counterparts in Europe, the Montreal-based company Domtar, one of the largest paper mills in North America, has begun producing paper containing a silver compound to guard against odors, germs, and the growth of fungus, mold and mildew.

“Aside from the health-care industry, Domtar is targeting the general office and Government office sectors,” says Eric Lavoie, Domtar’s manager of business papers. The cost of the new papers will fall between the price of standard paper and inkjet or premium paper, according to company officials.

The paper is expected to find more immediate use in hospitals and doctor’s offices before finding its way into the general office environment. In 2003, a study in the Journal of Hospital Infection found that MRSA — methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus, a type of staph infection resistant to certain antibiotics and often found in hospitals and health care facilities — would likely exist on patient case notes.

Silver has been found to be highly effective in preventing the spread of RSA, which at one time was only found in hospitals but now has spread to the general population.

When paper is dry it is unlikely to harbor germs, according to most virologists, but if a person’s fingers are damp, or if they just sneezed or coughed onto the paper before handing it to another person, it could carry microbes.

SilverCo, a Great Neck, NY-based company, which patented the paper process to Domtar, has also licensed it to companies that produce paper products used by the medical profession. For example, Smead Manufacturing Company in Hastings, Minnesota, produce antimicrobial file folders; Brooklyn Park Minnesota-based Medical Arts Press makes medical forms, and Quality Park with headquarters in Englewood, Colorado, produces silver-imbedded envelopes.

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