Occupational Health & Safety
sb admin | June 28, 2007My colleague Celeste Monforton has just posted a new case study at DefendingScience.org, and itâs worth a read for anyone interested in industry attempts to bury information about productsâ potential harmful effects.
The American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists (ACGIH) is a private, not-for-profit, professional organization for practitioners in the field of workplace and environmental health and safety. Since 1946, ACGIH committees have studied substances to which workers are exposed and recommended Threshold Limit Values (TLVs), which are akin to exposure limits.
The reason…
sb admin | June 27, 2007In the Chinese provinces of Henan and Shanxi, police have raided 7,500 brick kilns and rescued hundreds of slave laborers, many of them children. Victims were kidnapped or entrapped with offers of work and then sold into slavery; officials report arresting 250 people for the crimes. Jane Macartney of The Times describes the horrific conditions at the kilns:
The children, some as young as 8, worked in brick kilns for 16 hours a day with meagre food rations. They were guarded by fierce dogs and thugs who beat their prisoners at will. [...]
They lived in squalid conditions with many adult…
sb admin | June 25, 2007Last Wednesday, June 20, I learned from a newspaper reporter that a gold miner was missing at the Newmont company's Midas mine near Winnemucca, Nevada. I checked MSHA's website, but nothing was posted about the accident. No problem, I'll cut them some slack. Maybe within 24 hours they'd provide some details.Â
By Friday, there was still no news offered by MSHA, so I began to rely on the Newmont company's website and updates posted on the local Las Vegas TV stations (KVBC and KLAS). (The TV stations' stories provided no more information than that contained in the company's…
sb admin | June 25, 2007Jerrold Nadler (D-NY)  will chair a hearing today (June 25) on the federal government's failure to protect workers' and residents' health from the toxic dust cloud created in NYC after the September 11, 2001 attacks. The premiere witness will be Christine Todd Whitman, who was EPA administrator at the time of the attacks and reported that the air was safe to breathe. Former OSHA Asst. Secretary John Henshaw will also testify, and hopefully will be questioned pointedly by subcommittee members on why the Administration decided to forego enforcing critically important worker protection…
sb admin | June 24, 2007Louisville-Courier Journal reporters Laura Unger and Ralph Dunlop offer us the voices and faces of miners who are suffering from coal workers' pneumoconiosis. Their special report, Black Lung: Dust Hasn't Settled on Deadly Disease, includes an on-line version which features five compelling videos featuring 40- and 50-year old coal miners who are now suffering with the disabling lung disease. Mr. Danny Hall, 56, for example, who is still severely impaired despite receiving a lung transplant says "if I had to do over, I wouldn't ever go into coal mining."
The reporters begin the series…
sb admin | June 21, 2007by Les Boden
Iâm going to answer this question. But before I do, Iâm going to have to explain a few things about (ugh!) insurance.
If something bad happens to an insured person or company, the insurer is supposed to help soften the financial blow. You need a $50,000 operation and your medical insurer is supposed to cover most, if not all, the cost. A restaurant burns to the ground and the property/casualty insurer is supposed to cover much of the cost of the damages.
But insurers also are investment institutions. We pay the premium, they invest it, and then they pay it back to those of us who…
sb admin | June 21, 2007With a bipartisan voice vote yesterday, the House Education and Labor Committee approved a bill that would force OSHA to regulate workers' exposure to diacetyl. Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey, chair of the Subcommittee on Workforce Protections and chief sponsor of the legislation, commented:
Whatâs troubling is that if OSHA had taken action in a timely manner, we would not need to pass a bill to require OSHA to do something that it should have done a long time ago. ...While OSHA has ignored the warnings of NIOSH and others concerning this devastating disease, workers have become sick and…
sb admin | June 21, 2007By David Michaels
Lifelines Online, the safety and health publication of the Laborersâ Health and Safety Fund of North America, is publicizing some important videos â dealing with the history of occupational health and safety in the U.S., industrial hygiene pioneer Alice Hamilton, and the lung disease silicosis â that are now available for free online viewing. Iâve added recommendations of videos on a pesticide that sterilizes workers and on asbestos that are also well worth viewing and sharing, particularly if youâre an educator or leader of a group that deals with occupational health.
Stop…
sb admin | June 20, 2007Following up on their investigative series on conditions at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center, the Washington Postâs Dana Priest and Anne Hull have written a series of wrenching articles on veterans returning from Iraq with post-traumatic stress disorder. Bureaucratic confusion and a shortage of mental health resources leave many PTSD sufferers with little hope, and the problem is expected to worsen as fighting continues. Visit the series home;Â find information and resources on PTSD; or read individual articles:
The War Inside: Troops Are Returning From the Battlefield With Psychological…
sb admin | June 20, 2007âAs fire fighters, we know the risks of answering the call, but it does not lessen our pain when the worst happens,â said Harold Schaitberger, general president of the Int'l Association of Fire Fighters.
Nine fire fighters, aged 27 to 56, died on June 18 battling a blaze at a furniture warehouse in Charleston, SC. The city's fire chief said the men died "doing what they loved to do -- fight fires."
The nine brave public servants who lost their lives in the line of duty are:
Captain William "Billy" Hutchinson, 48
Captain Theodore M. "Mike" Benke, 49
Captain Louis Mulkey, 34
Engineer Mark…
sb admin | June 19, 2007Several members of the U.S. House and Senate introduced bills today to strengthen mine safety and health protections.  A  statement issued by Congressman George Miller (D-CA) says the bill builds upon the legislation passed in June 2006 called the MINER Act.Â
The House bills are HR 2768 and HR 2769  with co-sponsors of these House bills are: Bishop, Timothy (D-NY), Chandler, Ben (D-KY); Hare, Phil (D-IL); Holt, Rush (D-NJ); Kucinich, Dennis (D-OH); Mollohan, Alan B. (D-WV); Murtha, John (D-PA); Payne, Donald M. (D-NJ); Rahall, Nick J., II (D-WV); Sarbanes, John P. (D-MD); Woolsey,…
sb admin | June 18, 2007by Revere, cross-posted from Effect Measure
If you've ever been to Duluth, Minnesota in the wintertime, at the top of the state on Lake Superior, you know how cold it can get. And if you go another 50 miles up the shore you'll come to Silver Bay. Also cold. And dangerous in another way. It is a cancer hot spot for perhaps the deadliest cancer we know, mesothelioma.
Silver Bay is in the iron range and was the site of one of the most famous of the early environmental cases, when the Environmental Protection Agency was new and so was the idea of protecting people from an unhealthy environment…
sb admin | June 18, 2007By David Michaels
Seventy years ago, economist John Maynard Keynes predicted that his grandchildrenâs generation would enjoy three-hour workdays. Instead, a new study reports, one in five workers worldwide logs âexcessiveâ hours.
The study, Working Time Around the World, reviews global working time issues, including national laws and working time policies, trends in actual working hours, the specific experiences of different economic sectors and different types of workers, and the implications for working time policies. Authors Seangheon Lee, Deirdre McCann, and Jon C. Messenger of the…
sb admin | June 15, 2007By David Michaels
The National Football League, like many trade associations, has been disputing the long-term risks associated with employment in that industry. Weâve written about the leagueâs Committee on Mild Traumatic Brain Injury, supposedly independent but in fact dominated by individuals who work for NFL teams or the league itself. The Concussion Commission has been accused of downplaying the long term risks of football-induced brain injury. (Also see this post about one star running back's fight with the NFL for work-related disability payments.)
Now Alan Schwarz, who has been…
sb admin | June 15, 2007MSHA issued a news release yesterday announcing that eight mine operators have been put on notice for potential enforcement under the "pattern of violation" provisions of the Mine Act.  MSHA's release does not list the names of the mining operations, but the Charleston Gazette's Ken Ward is reporting that two of the mines are metal/non-metal operations and six are coal mines, including three in West Virginia.
In his written statement, MSHA' Assistant Secretary Richard Stickler said:
"The purpose of these letters is to put mine operators on notice about the repercussions they face if…
sb admin | June 13, 2007As David Michaels reported earlier today, Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey has introduced legislation that would force OSHA to issue standards for occupational exposure to diacetyl (an interim standard within 90 days and a final standard within two years). This artificial butter-flavoring substance has been linked to severe lung disease in workers exposed to it in airborne form. Workers from flavoring, microwave popcorn, and other food manufacturers have become ill, many after only a year or two of exposure.
As with other pressing issues, Californiaâs legislature has decided not to wait for the…
sb admin | June 12, 2007The Houston Chronicle is reporting that over the next two years, OSHA will be sending 300 federal inspectors to petroleum refineries to evaluate operators processes for handling hazardous chemicals. This announcement comes after the Chemical Safety Board (CSB) issued its comprehensive investigation report of the BP Texas City refinery explosion which took the lives of 15 people and injured 180 other individuals. An earlier story by the Chronicle noted OSHA officials' displeasure with the CSB's criticism.
In the CSB's report of the BP Texas City explosion, the investigators noted:
âOSHA…
sb admin | June 11, 2007Tomorrow (June 12th), the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee will hold a hearing entitled âAn Examination of the Health Effects of Asbestos and Methods of Mitigating Such Impacts.â The first witness listed is Senator Patty Murray, who for the past several years has been pushing to ban asbestos in the U.S.; as chair of the Subcommittee on Employment and Workplace Safety (of the Committee on Health Education, Labor, and Pensions), she held a hearing on asbestos on March 1st.
Tomorrowâs hearing includes a total of nine witnesses:
Panel IU.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-Wash.)
Panel…
sb admin | June 8, 2007Richard Stickler, the Asst. Secretary for MSHA, announced a new educational campaign to increase awareness about black lung disease. This latest initiative comes in response to surveillance data showing newly diagnosed cases of progressive massive fibrosis (PMF) among miners working in Lee County and Wise County, Virginia.  Stickler's "Control the Dust/Prevent Black Lung" campaign, which includes a personal letter sent to each and every underground coal mine operator in the country, is heavy on hand-holding with mine operators.  My question:
Mr. Stickler, where's the…
sb admin | June 6, 2007Breaking news: Another contract worker has been killed on the job at BPâs Texas City refinery â the site of the deadly 2005 explosion that took 15 workersâ lives. The worker, whose name has not been released, was electrocuted while working on an idle unit that was being reconditioned.
Stress on the job has been in the news lately. Troops serving in Iraq and in other violent conflicts face intense stress daily, and the pressure doesnât just disappear when they return home. Suicides among veterans whoâve recently returned from Iraq have galvanized some families and veteransâ groups to demand…