Nurses may face health risks because of their unwitting exposure to typical hospital chemicals such as disinfectants, medication and radiation, an environmental group revealed Tuesday.

Hospitals may be clean and sterile but that is not to say that hospital employees are safe from health risks. A survey conducted by the Environmental Working Group (EWG) suggests there is a link between hospital nurses’ exposure to chemicals, pharmaceuticals and radiation and serious health problems such as cancer, asthma, miscarriages and children with birth defects, the public watchdog said in a press release Tuesday.

The group worked in collaboration with the American Nurses Association, Health Care Without Harm and the Environmental Health Education Center at the University of Maryland School of Nursing, and says this survey is the first of its kind.

Although extremely detailed, its authors note that the survey was not a controlled, statistically designed study.

Substances such as residues from medications, anesthetic gases, sterilizing and disinfecting chemicals, latex, cleaning chemicals, hand and skin disinfection products, and even mercury escaping from broken medical equipment are all potential culprits, the EWG says.

“Nurses are exposed daily to scores of different toxic chemicals and other hazardous materials whose cumulative health risks have never been studied,” said Jane Houlihan, Vice President for Research at Environmental Working Group, in a press release.

“Nurses ingest, touch or breathe residues of any number of these potentially harmful substances as they care for patients, day after day and face potential but unstudied health problems as a result.”

Houlihan, who is also an author of the study, noted that as the survey was made available to nurses all over the country, there is a possibility that nurses with medical problems could have been more willing to participate.

The survey results show that nurses who were exposed regularly to chemicals, at least once a week, had increased rates of cancer, asthma and miscarriages.

The study also found that nurses who were pregnant when they were exposed to certain chemicals were more likely to have children with birth defects than nurses not exposed to the chemicals.

The authors emphasized the need for further, more comprehensive studies on the matter, as well as the need for restrictions and regulations regarding nurses’ exposure to chemicals and radiation.

Results of the survey can be found at http://www.ewg.org/sites/nurse_survey/analysis/main.php.