Is handling chemotherapy medications risky & harmful to a healthy body?

[tony h]

Why do healthcare personnel have to wear double gloves & protective gear when handling chemo drugs? Can a little skin contact here & there cause harm?

Just wondering why healthcare personnel take such extensive precautions when the patients just put it in their mouth & swallow it or get it infused directly into their bodies. Isn't that really bad for the patient?

[inverse_mushroom_cloud]

The nurses who administered my chemo never wore double gloves, just a single pair. They do that to protect ME more than themselves. So they don't introduce any bacteria/viruses into people with compromised immune systems.

If you had ever been near chemo, you would see that it is rare and unlikely (anyway) that skin contact would occur. Even if it did, no big deal, wipe it off.

Chemo kills some healthy cells, but it's less "harmful to a healthy body" than cancer is. Besides, the cells that are killed by chemo grow back in a few weeks.

[Lucy :]]

First part: They wear gloves to they don't come into contact with the chemicals, and obviously because a person receiving chemotherapy has a low immune system, they want to do all they can to protect them from germs also.

Second part: Not when the patient has cancer, no. I'd say its pretty good for them actually, since it fights away the cancer. Wouldn't you have thought that too?