Home Grown Latex: Allergy Free!
Natural rubber is a huge raw material import to this country, second only to petroleum. “Hevea brasiliensis”, the rubber tree, produces the latex which is present in our everyday products ranging from vehicle tires to medical latex gloves. Its pervasive presence is vital to our economics and common place in our daily functioning. We hardly give a second thought to its origins as the sap of an exotic foreign tree. Ironically, as we have experimented with even wider spread of latex’s usefulness, there has been a growing allergic response to its proteins amid our population.
America suffered a shortage of this important Asian natural resource during WWII. A push for domestic resourcefulness resurrected the farming of a lowly southwestern desert shrub called guayule (pronounced “why you lee”). This humble little plant had once before been rendered to manufacture rubber for automobiles in the early years of the American auto industry but had fallen to the wayside. One acre of land seeded with guayule could produce one ton of natural latex processed from the plant’s bark. However, at the end of WWII, Asian resources were once again available and domestic guayule harvests stopped.
But in recent years, scientists and businessmen have once again investigated the potential of our domestic guayule, this time with an eye to a very interesting property: The latex from the guayule plant is free of allergy producing proteins.
Allergies to latex manifest themselves with varying degrees of discomfort and seriousness. The gamut runs anywhere from hay-fever like symptoms, blisters on the skin, breathing difficulties or to anaphylactic shock which can be a life or death situation. It is little wonder that medical patients are routinely queried about latex allergies. For the long-term safety of both patients and staff, growing numbers of medical environments are moving toward becoming latex-free environments.
In the 1980s, growing public health awareness of HIV proliferated the use of latex gloves. With that proliferation came the consequential allergies. Traditional latex gloves offer dexterity and tactile sensitivity but there are now good alternatives such as nitrile or neoprene gloves which can replicate these qualities without compromise. Despite this, the thought of producing allergy-free latex medical supplies from a domestic crop remains intriguing.
Guayule’s beauty exceeds its allergy free latex. Only pure water is required to extract guayule’s latex, no harmful chemicals of any sort are necessary. Being a desert native, guayule needs very little water to produce a harvest and it is not in competition with food producing crops. A perennial, it produces crops for years from a single planting and has natural pest resistance. Syngas and other bio fuel are realistic byproducts of the plant’s remainders once the latex has been extracted. This is indeed one environmentally friendly little plant.
Jen Long is a glove industry specialist and Director of Web Community Relations for a high-volume online discounter specializing in Latex and Vinyl Gloves. Visit her support resources for those who use disposable gloves, Latex Gloves and Public Health.