A legal suit and commercial interests could be behind false information published repeatedly in the El Siglo newspaper regarding Baxter Healthcare operations in the DR, Jose Cruz, legal counsel to the firm explained to DR1 Daily News. DR1 Daily News carried the erroneous information in its 16 July release (http://www.dr1.com/daily/news071601.shtml) A letter by Wilfredo Mercado, general manager of the company, to El Siglo clarifies that it is totally false that toxic wastes could have been found in the plastics imported from a Baxter plant in Puerto Rico. He said Baxter does not sell or trade in hospital or clinical used materials. Baxter only supplied to Sodoplast inert plastic materials the result of industrial processes not hospital wastes. The only liquid that could have been found in the shipment of plastics was a saline solution used to confirm if the plastic products had any hole in them. Baxter says it is impossible that blood, urine or any human or animal, or biological fluid other than the saline solution be found in the plastics. Sodoplast purchased the plastics from Baxter plants in Puerto Rico to recycle them for the manufacture of shoes and other items. Baxter suspended business relations with Sodoplast recycling operation located in Moca after complaints of neighbors regarding this company’s operations that the company was dumping the wastes in a lot adjacent to a residential area. Upon receiving the complaints, Baxter, acting as a good corporate citizen, initiated legal actions against Sodoplast, seeking to end the business relation, collect a debt pending for plastics previously sold to Sodoplast, and that the company clean up its installations in Estancia Nueva, Moca. Baxter also says that it is not true that the shipments were consigned to Baxter. They were consigned to Sodoplast as shipping documents prove. Mercado points out that Baxter Healthcare has achieved international recognition for its fulfillment of the most strict quality control and ecology preservation practices for which it has received ISO 9001 and ISO 14001 certifications.
