Confined Space @ TPH
sb admin | September 24, 2008Itâs become increasingly evident over the past few years that many veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan have sustained mild traumatic brain injuries, often from being in the vicinity of a powerful blast. (See last monthâs New York Times article for details.) Symptoms can range from dizziness and persistent headaches to hearing problems and memory loss.
Now, USA Today reports, the government is substantially increasing benefits for veterans suffering from milder forms of brain injuries. A regulation announced this week modifies a 1961 rating schedule for mild brain trauma. Doctors have…
sb admin | September 18, 2008In 1971 under the National Cancer Act, Congresss authorized the 3-person President's Cancer Panel which is charged with monitoring the "development and execution of the National Cancer Program" and preparing periodic progress reports for the President. Over the years, the Panel has examined quality of life for cancer patients, access to care issues, and lifestyle risk factors related to cancer. The Panel's focus for 2008-2009 is "Cancer and the Environment," a topic endorsed by The Collaborative on Health and Environment (CHE) and the topic of a draft consensus statement released by CHE…
sb admin | September 17, 2008Earlier this year, the Charlotte Observer published an excellent and disturbing series on the dangerous working conditions at poultry plants, and employersâ efforts to keep worker injuries from being reported. Now, the Observerâs Ames Alexander reports that poultry worker Thomas Jurrissen told auditors about safety concerns at the plant where he worked â and was fired a day later.
Jurrissen has filed a complaint under North Carolinaâs Retaliatory Employment Discrimination Act, which prohibits employers from firing workers who report OSHA violations. (The problems he cited had to do with…
sb admin | September 11, 2008José Herrera, a contract worker at a Citgo refinery in Corpus Christi, was working on equipment when a pipe ruptured and scorched one-third of his body with 550-degree oil. Herrera is now disabled and in constant pain, even in his sleep. Workersâ compensation insurance covers his extensive medical costs, but his lost-wages compensation equals only about $37,000 annually, compared to the approximately $100,000 he earned before the accident. It will still be another two or three years before doctors can tell Herrera whether heâll be able to return to work.
Herrera is now suing the refinery…
sb admin | September 8, 2008"This happens. We live with that."
These are the words of ironworker Luis Guzman, who was working at the site of a new Manhattan skyscraper Tuesday when his fellow worker, Anthony Espito, 43, fell 40 stories (roughly 400 feet) to the ground. He was killed instantly. It appeared Mr. Espito was in fact wearing a safety harness, but it wasn't attached to anything.
Some of you may recall, I wrote a post just a few weeks ago about the shocking number of preventable workplace fatalities resulting from falls (see that post here). The day after, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that there…
sb admin | September 5, 2008On Labor Day, Matthew D. LaPlante reported in the Salt Lake Tribune:
On a day purportedly dedicated to America's laborers, much of the nation's labor force remained out in force. According to Development Dimensions International, a human resource consulting firm, about 40 percent of Americans work on Labor Day. Some work because they want to. But most, like [sandwich shop employee Rosemary] Patino, work because they have to.
At the height of her career as a nursing assistant, Patino made $15 an hour. "That's not great pay," she said, "but I got full benefits - medical, dental, paid vacations…
sb admin | September 3, 2008On Friday, August 29, Carolyn Merritt, 61, the former chair of the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (2002-2007) passed away after a valiant battle against metastic breast cancer. Advocates for workers' safety will remember Ms. Merritt as an outspoken expert who minced no words when she insisted that work-related injuries and fatalities are PREVENTABLE.
Tammy Miser of United Support and Memorial for Workplace Fatalities (USMWF) came to know the CSB chairwoman after Tammy lost her brother, Shawn Boone, in an aluminum dust explosion at his workplace in Huntington,…
sb admin | August 28, 2008Will someone just go and put up a sign "Proudly Screwing Workers: 2,827 Straight Days" on the Labor Department building?Â
Late yesterday I learned that Labor Secretary Elaine Chao, Asst. Secretary Leon Sequeira and her other political minions sent a proposed rule to the Federal Register which will change the process by which OSHA and MSHA assess workers' risk to health-harming contaminants.Â
The proposed rule confirms Chao's desire to make it more cumbersome and time-consuming for OSHA and MSHA to issue health-protective standards. It mandates, for example, that the agencies issue…
sb admin | August 27, 2008Earlier this week, the New York Times reported that as many as 300,000 combat veterans have suffered at least one concussion, according to Pentagon estimates. Victims of these injuries can suffer a range of symptoms, from dizziness and persistent headaches to hearing problems and memory loss. Lizette Alvarez write:
These symptoms, which may be subtle and may not surface for weeks or months after their return, are often debilitating enough to hobble lives and livelihoods.
To this day, some veterans â it is impossible to know how many â remain unscreened, their symptoms undiagnosed. Mild brain…
sb admin | August 27, 2008by Tom Bethell
(Posted with permission from The Mountain Eagle, Whitesburg, KY)
Just when you think youâve seen it all, somebody in the Bush administration comes up with another way to compromise somebody elseâs rights. The latest example is Richard Stickler, director of the Mine Safety and Health Administration.
MSHA has been much in the news since 2006. Coal miners have suffered a string of disasters â Sago, Aracoma Alma, Kentucky Darby, Crandall Canyon â that might have been avoided or mitigated if MSHA since 2001 had stuck to its congressionally mandated job, which is law enforcement. But…
sb admin | August 26, 2008Hmph!  I just read on the OMB/OIRA website that they have completed their review of Labor Secretary Chao's proposal to change the way that OSHA and MSHA assess workers' risk of health hazards. The OIRA website notice says their review was completed on August 25, and it was approved "consistent with change."Â
Well, I guess I didn't really expect Secretary Chao or one of her political associates to call me personally to discuss the August 14 letter that 80 public health scientists sent to her. In that letter, we urged Elaine Chao to withdraw her proposal from OMB review. I…
sb admin | August 25, 2008On Saturday afternoon, I sat at my computer screen and watched Barack Obama announce Senator Joe Biden as his running mate. I think it's a good pick for a multitude of reasons---some personal, some political and some practical. When Biden spoke on Saturday, I found myself smiling and nodding my head in agreement. When he said the following,
"...of all my years in the Senate, I have never in my life seen Washington so broken. I have never seen so many dreams denied and so many decisions deferred by politicians who are trying like the devil to escape their responsibility and…
sb admin | August 24, 2008Imagine being an MSHA inspector and being asked by independent investigators for your honest and frank opinion about the events surrounding the August 2007 disaster at the Crandall Canyon mine, which took the lives of nine men. You decide to participate because you genuinely believe in MSHA's mission---enforcing safety and health laws to protect miners' lives---and hope that your insight will help to improve the agency's ability to do just that.Â
Imagine now a sucker-punch in your gut as you learn that the transcript of your confidential interview has been read by your boss' boss' boss…
sb admin | August 22, 2008WSAV News in Savannah, Georgia reports today that Mr. Malcolm Frazier, 47, succumbed to the severe burns he sustained in the February explosion of combustible dust at the Imperial Sugar refinery in Port Wentworth, GA. WSAV reports:
After a long courageous battle, Malcolm Frazier, 47, succumbed to his burn injuries and passed away in the Joseph M. Still Burn Center this morning at 12:50 a.m.Â
'We mourn over the death of every burn patient, but this one was particularly hard,'Â stated Keith Donker, RN, night charge at the Burn Center. 'There is something very special about this family. Over…
sb admin | August 21, 2008Earlier today, NPR's Morning Edition dedicated a segment to the latest figure on workplace deaths: 5,488 workers died from fatal work injuries last year. That's the lowest number since the government started keeping statistics in 1992.
Libby Lewis interviewed David Michaels about the drop; he noted that some of the reduction is due to improvements (like tougher penalties for drivers in work zones, which keeps highway workers safer), but that a lot of it's due to a shift in the kind of work being done. Many high-hazard jobs have moved overseas, and the economic slowdown has meant fewer…
sb admin | August 20, 2008With growing rates of public transit usage nationwide, itâs a good time to see if transit systems are providing workplaces that will keep employees healthy.
In this weekâs news, the DC areaâs transit agency has unveiled seats with more back support and better seat belts for its bus drivers; the improved seats will initially appear in 203 new electric-hybrid buses, adding $200 to the $1,500 cost of a standard bus-driver seat.
In New York City, the picture is less rosy: 18 bus drivers are suing 13 manufacturers of diesel engines used by NYC Transit, claiming a link between diesel-fume exposure…
sb admin | August 19, 2008I recently started helping track worker fatalities over at The Weekly Toll, and it has been quite a harrowing couple of weeks. There's something about waiting to get news of another fatality-- a fatality that more than likely could have been prevented-- that leaves me feeling a little edgy, maybe even a little sick. Which is why for the last couple of weeks I have been wringing my hands at the number of deaths resulting from falls. Falls from roofs, falls from water towers, falls down elevator shafts.... you get the idea. And maybe I've been a little naive, because apparently, fatal…
sb admin | August 18, 2008Today, the Washington Post editorial page weighs in on the Department of Laborâs attempt to erect more hurdles to worker protection. (For more details on the proposed rule, see this case study or this blog post.) Like the New York Times editorial published two weeks ago, this one begins by noting that the Department has failed its duty to workers for the past 7+ years, but that itâs now going even further by writing its pro-industry stance into policy.
Hereâs the Washington Postâs description of what the proposed rule would do:
A last-minute policy push is nothing new to presidential…
sb admin | August 14, 2008Celeste Monforton was the first to publicize the nine-word item on the White House website that turned out to be a risk-assessment rule that would make it harder for OSHA and MSHA to protect workers from hazards. (Read more about it here.) Now, Celeste has teamed up with NRDCâs Jennifer Sass and gathered 80 scientists and occupational health experts to tell Labor Secretary Elaine Chao to withdraw the rule.
Their letter, sent earlier today, cites three concerns with the proposed rule:
It alters the definition of a working life from 45 years to an average number of years, which would result in…
sb admin | August 13, 2008Â
Researchers from the Naval Health Research Center in San Diego have reported that a significant number of U.S. veterans who were stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan begin abusing alcohol after returning. Difficulties in coping with traumatic memories of combat are one possible reason; younger servicemembers and call-ups from the National Guard and Reserves were among those most likely to increase their drinking and to develop problems related to alcohol. Reuters reports:
Reasons for the increased rates of alcohol abuse among Guard and Reserve members may be that they receive less training…