Occupational Health & Safety
sb admin | October 5, 2007Anthony Aguirre, 18, Donald Dejaynes, 43, Gary Foster, 48, Dupree Holt, 37 and James St. Peters, 52 were the five maintenance workers killed on Tuesday afternoon in a tunnel fire at the Xcel hydro-electric plant near Georgetown, Colorado. If you want any information about the fatal workplace incident, don't bother visiting OSHA's website; you'll find not a word about this workplace disaster.Â
I've been peeved (as have many others) for MSHA's failure to provide up-to-date and accurate information about mining fatalities and its accident investigation process. Should we not hold OSHA to…
sb admin | October 5, 2007Nearly 7 years ago, the late Senator Paul Wellstone (D-MN) and Senator Patty Murray (D-WA) began a legislative effort to ban asbestos-containing products. Yesterday, the "Ban Asbestos in America Act" passed the Senate with a bi-partisan voice vote.
On introducing the measure, the bill's author, Senator Murray, said:
"When I heard about Americans and people who were dying from absestos, I thought to myself, my gosh, I thought asbestos was banned many years ago.  How can this be? Well, the fact is asbestos has never been banned [in the U.S.] , today 2,500 metric tons of asbestos are…
sb admin | October 4, 2007Senator Patty Murray (D-Wash) introduced a bill (S. 2127) to see that family members of miners involved in disasters like the 2006 Sago and 2007 Crandall tragedies receive accurate information about the rescue operations and appropriate post-accident support.
At a Senate Appropriations' subcommittee hearing on Sept. 5, Senator Murray suggested that she was examining the family-assistance program in place at the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) as a model for mining disasters (See previous post here). At an October 2 hearing of the Senate HELP Committee, members heard a bit…
sb admin | October 3, 2007Earlier this week, reports on two recent studies provided more evidence that workersâ health has a significant effect on employers.
One study tallied the work days lost to chronic conditions; mental disorders accounted for roughly one third (1.3 billion) of the missed days, and back and neck pain for another third (1.2 billion).
The other study found that employees who got aggressive intervention for depression worked about two weeks more during the yearlong study than those who got the standard advice and were more likely to still be employed at the end of the year. Early analysis indicates…
sb admin | October 3, 2007Five employees of RPI Coatings were killed on Tuesday at the Xcel Energy Inc's(NYSE: XEL) Cabin Creek Station hydroelectric plant, located about 30 miles from Denver, CO. The deceased workers were part of a contract maintenance crew which were applying a specialized epoxy coating onto the inside of a 3,000 feet-long (and 4-feet wide) water pipe. A fire erupted, with four RPI contractors able to escape it. Â
 The Denver Post is reporting that the five deceased workers had:
"last communicated by radio about 30 minutes after the fire broke out, and reported no injuries, but they…
cmonforton | October 2, 2007By Liz Borkowski
Hundreds of nurses are on strike in Kentucky and West Virginia after contract negotiations with Appalachian Regional Healthcare failed. The nurses refused to accept a package that reduced their holiday pay and increased their insurance premiums (canceling out the proposed wage increase) and that failed to add staffing that would offset mandatory overtime. (AP) Anyone who might one day be a patient in a U.S. hospital should pay particular attention to that last item, because nurse staffing affects patient care.
Here’s the Lexington Herald-Leader on the nurses’ position:
Anita…
sb admin | October 1, 2007In an article in the 10/8 issue of The Nation, Virginia Sole-Smith reports that many U.S. nail salon workers are concerned about the health effects of the products they use â but gaps in research and regulatory agency responsibilities make it hard for the workers to protect themselves.Â
The vast majority of the U.S.âs 380,000 nail technicians are women, and their average annual salary is less than $17,000; about 40 percent are Vietnamese immigrants who earn as little as $50 for an eight- to ten-hour day, Sole-Smith reports. Theyâre exposed to a lot of chemicals on the job:
In fact, the…
sb admin | September 28, 2007The Senate HELP Committee is holding a hearing on Tuesday, Oct. 2 on "Current Mine Safety Disasters: Issues and Challenges." The witness list includes the same familiar faces from MSHA, NIOSH, the UMWA and National Mining Association, but the Committee has also invited two "newcomers" to these mine safety hearings. One is former MSHA engineer Robert Ferriter (now with the Colorado School of Mines), who received some publicity in the wake of the Crandall Canyon disaster when he was critical of MSHA's approval of the Murray Energy's mining plan. The other is Joseph Osterman of the…
sb admin | September 28, 2007While the House of Representatives was voting Wednesday to approve the Popcorn Workers Lung Disease Prevention Act (here), OSHA's Assistant Secretary Edwin Foulke had just mailed a letter rejecting a petition from a group of workersâ who'd asked for emergency protection from the respiratory hazards caused by butter-flavoring agents.  Mr. Foulkeâs response is not only tardy---it took them 14 months to write a 5-page letter---but its content is insulting.  âI assure you that OSHA takes the concerns you expressed very seriously," he writes. Oh, please. Your meager actions to protect…
sb admin | September 27, 2007Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) explaining his opposition to H.R. 2693, the Popcorn Workers Lung Disease Prevention Act, which would require OSHA to protect workers from breathing toxic chemicals used in artificial butter flavor:
"If there's something wrong with popcorn, how did Orville Redenbacher live so long?"
sb admin | September 26, 2007The big news is that the House passed the Popcorn Workers Lung Disease Prevention Act, as David reports below. In other occupational health and safety news:
China Daily: A fire in a coal mine shaft has killed three miners and trapped 15 more.
Occupational Health & Safety: South Carolinaâs OSHA has assessed more than $42,000 in penalties against the Charleston fire department and the owner of a furniture store where nine firefighters died fighting a blaze in June.
Sacramento Bee: Since California launched a campaign to address on-the-job heat stress, inspections have increased and heat-…
sb admin | September 26, 2007By David Michaels
Updated Below
By a vote of 260 to 154, the US House of Representatives has passed H.R. 2693, the Popcorn Workers Lung Disease Prevention Act. This was not a pure party line vote - over the objections of the White House and the Chamber of Congress, 47 Republicans voted with the majority, and only 8 Democrats opposed the resolution. The vote demonstrates the widespread recognition that OSHA has failed to protect workers and Congress needs to step in to force the agency to do its job.
Our thanks go out to Education and Labor Committee Chairman George Miller, Workforce…
sb admin | September 26, 2007By Liz Borkowski
Yesterday, the White House and the OSHA Fairness Coalition (which includes members like the International Food Distributors Association, National Association of Manufacturers, and U.S. Chamber of Commerce) wrote to members of the House of Representatives to express their strong opposition to H.R. 2693, the Popcorn Workers Lung Disease Prevention Act.
No one whoâs been following the Bush Administrationâs approach to regulation will be surprised to hear that the responses from the White House and business coalition are strikingly similar to one another, and to arguments used…
sb admin | September 25, 2007By David Michaels
Days before the House will vote on legislation to force OSHA to regulate diacetyl (the artificial butter flavor chemical that causes bronchiolitis obliterans), the agency has apparently decided that perhaps it is finally time to begin the rulemaking process for this substance. Yesterday, fourteen months after we petitioned OSHA for an emergency standard, the agency has called for a stakeholder meeting to discuss how it might address the problem.
Although OSHAâs press release claims that the agency is âinitiating rule-making,â if you read the small print, it is clear that…
sb admin | September 25, 2007By Liz BorkowskiÂ
As David Michaels reported yesterday, the Popcorn Workers Lung Disease Prevention Act will come up for a vote in the House some time this week. The legislation will force OSHA to issue a standard that will minimize workersâ exposure to diacetyl, the butter flavoring chemical thatâs been causing severe, irreversible lung disease in workers from food and flavoring plants.
Why hasnât OSHA acted to address diacetyl exposure, even though theyâve known about the problem for several years? It seems that these days, top regulatory-agency officials are more interested in a…
sb admin | September 24, 2007By David Michaels
Later this week, the House of Representatives will vote on H.R. 2693 -- The Popcorn Workers Lung Disease Prevention Act. Now is the moment to let your Member of Congress know how important it is for them to support the legislation.
Popcorn Workers Lung is a case study in regulatory failure. As we've written many times here, OSHA has ignored this deadly hazard for far too long. At least three workers have died and dozens more have developed irreversible lung disease as a result of exposure to diacetyl.
H.R. 2693 would give OSHA 90 days to issue an interim final standard that…
sb admin | September 19, 2007Ground Zero workers are still in the news. Last week, a House Panel heard from Dr. Philip Landrigan of the Mount Sinai School of Medicine about the illnesses these workers suffer from. Earlier this week, several members of New York's Congressional delegation introduced the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act, which would would establish a long-term program to provide a broad range of physical and mental health services to Ground Zero workers.
In other news:
Charleston Gazette: According to new federal data, black lung disase rates in U.S. coal miners have doubled over the last…
sb admin | September 18, 2007California often takes the lead in responding to public health issues, so itâs not surprising that their state legislature was the first to take up a bill to ban the artificial butter flavoring chemical diacetyl from California workplaces by 2010. California is home to 29 flavoring plants, and state health officials have diagnosed several flavoring workers with bronchiolitis obliterans, the debilitating lung disease that strikes many young, otherwise healthy workers who are exposed to diacetyl on the job.
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State Assemblywoman Sally Lieber introduced the diacetyl legislation in February, and…
sb admin | September 13, 2007On March 23, 2005 a series of explosions ripped through BPâs Texas City refinery. The disaster claimed the lives of 15 and injured many more. (You can read some of the press coverage here and here.)
Here are a few interesting tidbits fresh from the courtroom where BP lawyers are working to discredit the claims of four workers injured in the blast. These particular cases are the first to reach the courtroom, as at least 1350 of 3000 claims filed against BP have been settled behind closed doors.
In case anyone had any doubts that BP knew of warning signs, read on.
Back in March, I wrote about…
sb admin | September 13, 2007One of the benefits of blogging at The Pump Handle is connecting with people who have first-hand experience with our nation's inadequate public health protection system. We've heard from parents and wives who appreciate us writing about their loved ones' fatal on-the-job injuries, and federal employees who share their unique experiences with how scientific information is used (or misused) in public health decision-making. Today, I'd like to introduce you to Mrs. Patty Sebok, who I first "met" a few months ago through a blogpost at Gristmill. We've been exchanging emails since then about…