No, repeated exposure is a component of latex sensitivity, so health care workers, who wear gloves a lot, are more likely to develop issues than patients.
Certainly, the general public can be latex sensitive, but the incidence is less than 1% as opposed to health care workers where the incidence of latex sensitivity is 10% or greater. Anaphylaxis in both groups is rare. Latex-sensitive health care people who wear latex gloves are far more likely to get local skin reaction of varying severity.
The current crop of sterile gloves for OR use tend to be mostly some sort of vinyl rather than latex. Those gloves, for that purpose, are pretty good these days and most surgeons find them to be perfectly acceptable or use in the OR where tactile sensation is obviously very important. At our facility, we went through endless trials of various brands before we found one that was acceptable to all the surgeons. They are substantially more expensive than latex, however. Another component of the rising cost of health care. Exam gloves, however, such as the ones in boxes on the wall in ERs or patient exam rooms are usually pretty bad. For that purpose they're usable in most circumstances. They're primary advantage is that they're cheap.
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