coal miners

Occupational Health News Roundup

kkrisberg — Wed, 09 Aug 2017 23:35:05 +0000

Occupational Health News Roundup

At The New York Times, Elizabeth Olson writes about the challenges that older workers face in proving workplace bias. She begins the story with Donetta Raymond, a longtime manufacturing worker laid off, along with hundreds of others, by Spirit AeroSystems Holdings. Now, some of those workers are bringing a lawsuit after discovering that nearly half of the laid-off workers were 40 or older, the age when federal age discrimination protections kick in. Olson writes:

Such lawsuits are popping up as the nation’s work force ages and as many longtime workers claim that they are being deliberately targeted for such reductions. As manufacturing has contracted, more experienced workers feel they have limited options for re-employment if they are discarded at older ages.

“Once layoffs were done by reverse seniority. It was last in, first out, so the more senior workers kept their jobs,” said Robert J. Gordon, an economics professor at Northwestern University, who studies the country’s growth and work force productivity.

“Now we’re seeing a transition from the age of favoritism to that of age discrimination,” Mr. Gordon said, “because newer workers are allowed to stay on while more costly, older workers are let go.”

Olson noted that lawmakers in Congress have introduced the Protecting Older Workers Against Discrimination Act, though past efforts to enhance older worker protections have found little traction in Congress and opposition from big business.

While long-term workers are better off than they were a half-century ago when employers flatly blocked applicants over 55 years old and ran help-wanted ads that said “only workers under 35 need apply,” older employees still can encounter different kinds of age bias.

Age-related harassment complaints, especially remarks that belittle or demean longtime workers’ skills or contributions, are up noticeably. They rose to 4,185 last year, an increase of almost 14 percent since 2011, according to E.E.O.C. data.

Read the full story at The New York Times.

In other news:

Minneapolis Star Tribune: Dylan Lovan (Associated Press) reports that this year’s coal miner fatalities have surged ahead of last year’s with new miners particularly vulnerable to fatal incidents. Ten coal miners have died on the job this year, compared to eight last year. The U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration says it’s responding with new training, but the United Mine Workers of America says the agency’s effort isn’t enough. Right now, inspectors who conduct the trainings are prohibited from punishing the mine is any safety violations are detected. Lovan writes: “A former MSHA official said the agency would be ‘tying the hands’ of inspectors if they don't allow them to write citations on the training visits. ‘The record low fatal injury rate among coal miners in recent years is because of strong enforcement of the law,’ said Celeste Monforton, who served on a governor-appointed panel that investigated West Virginia's 2010 Upper Big Branch mine disaster that killed 29 miners. There were 12 coal mining deaths in 2015 and 16 in 2014.”

EHS Today: Stefanie Valentic reports that farm workers are protesting in Suma, Washington, after a fellow farmworker, Honesto Silva Ibarra, a temporary worker on a H-2A visa working for Sarbanand Farms, died after becoming sick on the job. Workers are alleging mistreatment and unsafe conditions in the death — one said supervisors repeatedly ignored Ibarra’s complaints about feeling sick. At a hospital, Ibarra was treated for dehydration and suffered cardiac arrest. The farm denied they knew about Ibarra’s illness. Valentic writes: “Since then, more than 70 workers for the blueberry grower were fired for insubordination after refusing to return to work and also currently are displaced from their living quarters. The employees protested, saying Ibarra did complain, and they were exposed to long work hours and unsafe conditions.”

The Guardian: Sam Levin reports that more than 60 current and former Google employees are considering a class-action suit against the technology company for sexism and pay disparities against women. If filed, the suit would build on a case brought by the U.S. Department of Labor, which is claiming Google systematically underpays women. Google denies the claim, though a judge recently forced the company to hand over salary records. Levin writes: “One former senior manager who recently left Google told the Guardian she repeatedly learned of men at the same level as her earning tens of thousands of dollars more than her, and in one case, she said she had a male employee join her team with a higher salary despite the fact that she was his superior.”

Detroit News: Keith Laing reports on what’s next for the United Auto Workers after the recent defeat at a Nissan plant in Canton, Mississippi, where workers voted nearly 2 to 1 against forming a union. The vote marked the third time in nearly three decades that Nissan workers in the U.S. South had decided not to join the labor union. Shortly before the Canton vote, the union had filed seven claims that Nissan broke labor law; the National Labor Relations Board will consider the charges alongside a series of other allegations. Laing writes the labor board could order another election if it sides with the auto workers union. He writes: “Nissan has dismissed the UAW’s accusations of labor law violations as sour grapes that were part of a ‘desperate, last-minute attempt to undermine the integrity of the secret ballot voting process’ from the union.”

Kim Krisberg is a freelance public health writer living in Austin, Texas, and has been writing about public health for 15 years. Follow me on Twitter — @kkrisberg.

kkrisberg Wed, 08/09/2017 - 19:35

NIOSH’s metal/nonmetal miner health effort seeks new data sources, collaborators

kkrisberg — Tue, 12 Jul 2016 16:20:04 +0000

NIOSH’s metal/nonmetal miner health effort seeks new data sources, collaborators

Mining is one of the most dangerous jobs in America, with more than 600 workers dying in fatal workplace incidents between 2004 and the beginning of July. And many more miners die long after they’ve left the mines from occupational illnesses such as black lung disease, while others live with the debilitating aftermath of workplace injuries. Today, researchers know a great deal about the health risks miners face on the job, but some pretty big gaps remain.

Kristin Yeoman and her colleagues at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) hope to begin closing that knowledge gap with a new focus on the health of metal and nonmetal (MNM) miners. In an article published earlier this year in Archives of Environmental & Occupational Health, the researchers outlined current knowledge on MNM miner health and potential sources of new data, with the ultimate goal of developing a health surveillance program specifically focused on MNM mine workers.

“What we really want to do with this article is figure out what information is out there so we can better understand what we know and don’t know,” Yeoman, a medical officer in NIOSH’s Western States Division, told me. “We believe a surveillance program would be an excellent tool to help us analyze trends and outcomes and measure the effectiveness of interventions…but right now, we need to understand what information we need and how to collect it.”

Today, there are no comprehensive health surveillance systems in place to monitor the health of MNM miners. Still, such surveillance isn’t new for NIOSH — the agency has been operating the Coal Workers’ Health Surveillance Program for more than four decades in accordance with the Federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act of 1969. In fact, NIOSH is now set to expand its coal miner health program as part of a larger effort to end black lung disease, which kills about 1,500 former coal miners every year. MNM miners face many of the same or similar hazards that coal miners do — noise, heat, silica and other dangerous dusts, chemical fumes, repetitive stress, diesel exhaust — but the current health status of MNM miners remains unknown.

Yeoman said the renewed focus on MNM miners comes, in part, from an expansion of NIOSH’s Western States Division. In turn, she said researchers now have an opportunity to focus more on occupations particularly prevalent in the American West, such as MNM mining. Yeoman and co-authors C.N. Halldin, J. Wood, E. Storey, D. Johns and A.S. Laney write:

Substantial gaps exist in our understanding of the current health status of MNM miners. Although data regarding general health status, chronic diseases, and some occupational illnesses in the general mining industry can be obtained from national health surveys such as (National Health Interview Surveys), health data specific to each mining sector are not collected. Very little information is available regarding chronic disease risk factors, occupational diseases, as well as nonfatal illnesses that cause substantial morbidity among MNM miners. Many of the cohort studies evaluating MNM miner health status were performed in other countries, and the representativeness of these miners’ working conditions to those of U.S. miners is questionable. Current surveillance systems are inadequate to monitor the health of this population.

Metal mining involves both precious and nonprecious metals, such as gold, silver, copper and zinc, while nonmetal mining can include commodities such as gypsum, silicates, aluminum oxides and potash, which is mostly used for fertilizer. MNM mining, which includes both underground and surface mining, employed more than 66,000 workers as of 2012, not including contractors, the journal article reported. Every year between 2004 and 2013, more 1,000 MNM miners sustained work-related injuries that required time away from work.

In conducting a literature review on MNM miner health, Yeoman and her colleagues found that a substantial portion is focused on lung cancer — some of that research has found “excess lung cancer deaths” among MNM miners who spent longer durations underground or who faced greater lifetime exposures to radon and diesel exhaust. Prior research on MNM miners has also examined nonmalignant respiratory diseases; increased silicosis risks; excess mortality from esophageal and stomach cancers; heat illness; and cardiovascular-related deaths. However, the article found that “methodologic issues and a narrow focus limit the ability to use current literature to effectively understand the health status of the MNM mining population.”

Yeoman and fellow researchers also reviewed national health and labor surveys as well as state health department data to see how those sources contribute to knowledge about MNM miner health. They reported that the National Survey of the Mining Population doesn’t include health questions and its labor force data might not be representative of the entire MNM mining sector. The National Health Interview Surveys provide some “useful” information on mine workers in general, but they don’t differentiate between different types of mining.

The National Occupational Mortality Surveillance System includes useful information on causes of death among MNM miners, but it’s not as useful in developing interventions targeting nonfatal conditions, such as arthritis and hearing loss. The Mine Safety and Health Administration collects data on mining-related injuries and diseases, but its data is limited by under-reporting of illnesses, many of which have a long latency period. Finally, most public health agencies do not have health data on mine workers, the article found. In fact, 10 western state health departments reported no specific data on miner health status.

“What stands out to me is that when you look at the literature on MNM miner health, it’s focused on respiratory disease and cancer and much of it is focused on mortality rather than morbidity,” Yeoman told me. “But we don’t have good information on nonfatal illnesses like musculoskeletal disorders that can lead to disability.”

In the article, Yeoman and colleagues concluded that with such big knowledge gaps, a “surveillance system focused specifically on (MNM miners) is necessary.” Such an effort would ideally gather information from sources that already have data on MNM miner health and would include active health surveillance in the form of a mobile health clinic at MNM mines and in mining communities. Other data sources could be primary care and clinical occupational health providers as well as employer-sponsored health programs.

Yeoman emphasized that plans for a MNM miner health surveillance system are in their very earliest stages. At the moment, she said, researchers are focused on gathering as much existing information as possible and reaching out to new collaborators. For example, she said an early step will be partnering with individual mines to develop research programs and identify priority health issues among MNM miners. She said NIOSH researchers also hope to collaborate with public health organizations, community-based groups, health care facilities, employers, and labor and trade organizations.

“We’re interested in hearing from any group that interacts with MNM miners,” Yeoman told me. “We want to hear suggestions, we want to know about miner health data we might not know about. Right now, it’s more about getting as much information on MNM miners as we can and figuring out who’s out there and who’s interested. …As we expand NIOSH’s reach in western states, we need to look at this industry and do whatever we can to keep MNM miners as healthy as we can.”

If you have information on MNM miner health or are interested in collaborating, email Yeoman at kyeoman@cdc.gov. For a copy of the full journal article, visit Archives of Environmental & Occupational Health.

Kim Krisberg is a freelance public health writer living in Austin, Texas, and has been writing about public health for nearly 15 years.

kkrisberg Tue, 07/12/2016 - 12:20

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Occupational Health News Roundup

kkrisberg — Tue, 21 Jun 2016 15:52:54 +0000

Occupational Health News Roundup

At Reveal, Will Evans investigates how lobbyists for the temporary staffing industry squashed a legislative effort in Illinois to reform the industry’s widespread discriminatory hiring practices. Evans has previously reported on how the temp industry discriminates against workers of color, particularly black workers, using code words, symbols and gestures to illegally hire workers according to sex, race and age.

In Illinois, the Chicago Workers’ Collaborative developed legislation to confront such hiring practices. Illinois Senate Bill 47 would have required temp agencies to track the race and gender of job applicants, but it never got a final vote. Of the bill’s debate, Evans writes:

The debate echoed the tensions between black and Latino laborers competing for minimum-wage jobs on the streets of Chicago.

It’s a dynamic playing out in cities across the country, as some employers choose Latinos for jobs black workers once often had. The clash is particularly sharp in Illinois, with one of the highest rates of black unemployment, far surpassing Latino joblessness.

And that wasn’t the only problem.

Dan Shomon, a lobbyist for an alliance of temp agencies, said the proposed law would create a paperwork nightmare costing businesses millions of dollars. Shomon is also executive director of the Staffing Services Association of Illinois, which he said represents 25 agencies that provide 250,000 jobs a year.

“We oppose discrimination also,” said Shomon, a top aide to Barack Obama during his state and U.S. Senate careers until 2006. He didn’t mention that, just one week before, a board member of his association had signed an $800,000 settlement to resolve government findings of widespread discrimination at his company. Other association members also have been hit with bias claims.

Shomon said the bill’s requirement to track the race and gender of job applicants wasn’t necessary: The federal government already collects that data, he told legislators. He had that wrong, but nobody caught the error. He repeated it a few times.

Read Evan’s full investigation on the defeat of Illinois Senate Bill 47 at Reveal.

In other news:

Lexington Herald Leader: The newspaper reports that thousands of retired coal miners united last week for a rally in Lexington, Kentucky, and called on Congress to protect their health and pension benefits as coal mine operators seek out bankruptcy protections. United Mine Workers of America reports that 22,000 retired union miners, their widows and dependents are at risk of losing their health care benefits unless federal lawmakers take action. The newspaper reports: “Cecil Roberts, president of the United Mine Workers of America, told the gathering of more than 3,500 members that union miners spent their careers working in dangerous places to provide America’s electricity and steel and make it the most prosperous nation on Earth. Some retirees arrived in wheelchairs while others walked with canes or carried oxygen bottles, underscoring the health problems union members said a career underground can cause.”

The New York Times: Anjali Singhvi reports on the killing of journalists and the rare instances in which such murders are prosecuted, writing that of the nearly 1,200 journalists killed since 1992, prosecutions have occurred in less than 3 percent of cases. Iraq, Somalia, Syria and the Philippines were home to the highest rates of unpunished journalist killings, with the majority of those killed being local journalists covering stories in their own communities. Singhvi writes: “The Islamic State has been responsible for the deaths of at least 24 journalists since 2013, mostly in Iraq, but also in Syria, Turkey and France. The group began abducting journalists for ransom, and many were tortured before being killed.”

Chicago Tribune: Alexia Elejalde-Ruiz reports that the Chicago City Council’s Committee on Workforce Development and Audit has unanimously approved an earned sick time ordinance. The proposed ordinance would allow workers to earn one hour of paid sick leave for every 40 hours of work, with a cap of five sick days per 12 months. The full City Council is supposed to consider the sick leave ordinance this week. Elejalde-Ruiz writes: “The measure is meant to protect people like Noemi Hernandez, who works as a bartender at a restaurant on Navy Pier. Hernandez, 26, said she had a decision to make this week when her 8-year-old daughter woke up with a bloody nose: Should she assume it was no big deal, perhaps a reaction to the hot weather, and head to work for her double shift? Or should she stay with her daughter, forgo the day's wages and risk angering her boss?”

Billings Gazette: Amy Dalrymple reports that OSHA is investigating the death of Johnny Stassinos, 52, who was working at an oil well site this past weekend near Watford City, North Dakota, when the well ignited, killing him and injuring three fellow workers. Two of the injured workers experienced third-degree burns over 70 percent of their bodies. The workers were employed by Most Wanted Well Service and SEI Well Service, according to a representative of the well’s owner, XTO, which is a subsidiary of ExxonMobil. Stassinos’ death was the second worker fatality in the Bakken oil fields in four days: OSHA also recently received a report of a worker being crushed to death, though the agency was awaiting more detailed information.

Kim Krisberg is a freelance public health writer living in Austin, Texas, and has been writing about public health for nearly 15 years.

kkrisberg Tue, 06/21/2016 - 11:52

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Occup Health News Roundup

Occupational Health & Safety

OSHA

paid leave

Public Health - General

safety

coal miners

employment discrimination

temporary staffing agency

workplace discrimination

Donald Rasmussen: Coal miners’ physician, humble man

lborkowski — Thu, 31 Dec 2015 08:58:00 +0000

Donald Rasmussen: Coal miners’ physician, humble man

During the holiday season, Kim, Liz and I are taking a short break from blogging. We are posting some of our favorite posts from the past year. Here’s one of them, originally posted on July 27, 2015:

by Celeste Monforton, DrPH, MPH

The occupational health community, coal miners, their families and labor advocates are mourning the loss of physician Donald Rasmussen, 87.

For more than 50 years, he diagnosed and treated coal miners with work-related lung disease, first at the then Miners Memorial Hospital in Beckley, WV and later at his own black lung clinic. A lengthy story by John Blankenship in Beckley’s Register-Herald written two years ago profiledDr. Rasmussen’s career.

“ In 1962, a young doctor from Manassa, Colorado, saw a help wanted advertisement in a medical journal needing doctors in Beckley at the then Miners Memorial Hospital. ‘I was looking for a place to set up practice after getting out of the Army,’ Rasmussen recalled. ‘I had never been to West Virginia and was a little skeptical about the move.’ But when the doctor arrived in Beckley he was impressed with what he saw. ‘The scenic beauty of the area, the wonderful people who lived here and the staff and the work going on at the Miners hospital were simply amazing.’”

“Rasmussen began working with coal miners, which would become his life’s mission. ‘Before I came here, I really had no exposure or knowledge about coal miner’s lung disease, known today as black lung,’ he said. Rasmussen says he began to see many miners who experienced shortness of breath and other trouble with their lungs and breathing. ‘I was asked to evaluate some of the miners.’”

“…For coal miners and their families, Rasmussen became known as the ‘doctor with a heart.’ But Rasmussen said he was just doing his job. “I wasn’t trying to take one side over another,” he explained. ‘But I saw a lot of injustice being done to coal miners and their families.’”

Evan Smith with the Appalachian Citizens’ Law Center writes:

“There is no single source that can catch the breadth of his work, but any account of the black lung movement and the current state of the disease must include his name. In the early days of the black lung movement, Dr. Rasmussen was one of the key players in the group called Physicians for the Miners’ Health and Safety that provided medical support for miners’ experiences with black lung—a disease that most of the medical community refused to acknowledge at the time.

Dr. Rasmussen’s evidence-based approach and detailed research helped to prove that coal-mine dust causes breathing problems that may not show up on x-ray and may not show up without quality exercise testing. Dr. Rasmussen’s advocacy contributed to the passage of the landmark 1969 Coal Act which set the first federal limits on miners’ exposure to coal-mine dust and created the federal black lung benefits system for miners disabled by the disease.

The Charleston (WV) Gazette’s Paul J. Nyden explains Rasmussen’s role in the larger fight for worker health and safety:

“Rasmussen, Dr. Isadore E. Buff and Dr. Hawey Wells helped spark growing concerns about black lung disease throughout the coalfields, when they spoke in union halls, schools and churches. The black lung issue came to statewide and national attention after a Nov. 20, 1968, methane and coal dust explosion killed 78 miners in Consolidation Coal’s No. 9 Mine between Mannington and Fairmont in Marion County. “

“In the wake of that tragedy, miners at the East Gulf Mine near Rhodell walked out on strike on Feb. 18, 1969, protesting the failure of the state Legislature to pass black lung legislation. By March 5, when the state Senate began debating the bill, more than 40,000 of the state’s 43,000 miners were on strike. Rasmussen, Buff and Wells played a central role in backing the strike and pressuring the state Legislature to pass its first black lung law. They helped counter many medical professionals who continued to deny that black lung was a serious health threat. After then-Gov. Arch Moore signed the bill on March 11, miners returned to work the next morning. “

Rasmussen’s early papers include “Pulmonary impairment in southern West Virginia coal miners” (Am Rev Respir Dis (1968)), “Respiratory function in southern Appalachian coal miners (Am Rev Respir Dis (1971)), “Patterns of physiological impairment in coal workers’ pneumoconiosis” (Ann N Y Acad Sci (1972)), and “Impairment of oxygen transfer in dyspneic, nonsmoking soft coal miners (J Occup Med (1971)).

Physicians who worked with Dr. Rasmussen are offering their own tributes. Karen Mulloy, an occupational medicine physician at Case Western Reserve University told me:

“He was an exceptional human being. I had the privilege of working for him for 5 years from 1970 to
1975. It was my first job in the medical field, as a cardio-pulmonary technician, testing the miners in his lab for Black Lung. His compassion for the miners and his righteous anger over the inequities that faced them and the coal companies refusal to make the coal mines safe was more than inspiring. His example of how a doctor of the people could be was the reason I went to medical school and has been the guiding principle of my life.”

Robert Cohen, MD, an expert in pulmonary medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, told me:

“I first met Don in 1994 at a Black Lung clinics conference and have been in touch with him, advised by him, and mentored by him ever since. He was a gentle, soft spoken man with a huge heart, who worked tirelessly to merge science and clinical medicine with his passion for social justice, and in this case, to give coal miners a fair shake in the battle to be compensated for their occupational illness.”

“His early work on the exercise physiology of black lung disease lead to the inclusion of exercise testing with arterial blood gases in the black lung disability evaluation regulations. “

J. Davitt McAteer, one of the nation’s leading experts on miners’ health and safety, added this:

“When the definitive history of the black lung issue is written, Dr. Donald Rasmussen will be recognized as the central figure. By bringing scientific evidence to the debate, he created the momentum which resulted in the passage of state and federal laws to protect miners’ health.”

McAteer attended Dr. Rasmussen’s memorial service and sent along a copy of a eulogy. It was offered by Craig Robinson who was a VISTA volunteer in the 1960’s when he first met Dr. Rasmussen. Robinson remarks on a recent meeting of Rasmussen and former ABC anchor Ted Koppel.

Joe Main, the assistant secretary of labor for mine safety and health, and former H&S director for the United Mine Workers issued a statement saying:

“The coal mining community has lost one of its most passionate advocates. …Dr. Rasmussen was a humble man, and he would say he was merely a physician performing his duty to his patients. But for so many of us who shared his vision, he was a hero. He will be greatly missed by miners and their families across the country whose lives he touched.”

Dr. Rasmussen passed away on July 23. He continued to see patients in his clinic until May 2015 when he suffered a fall. His family says “he’s now moved his offices upstairs.”

[Update (8/3/15): The New York Times’ published on 8/2/15 an obituary about Dr. Rasmussenentitled “Crusader for Coal Miners’ Health.”]

lborkowski Thu, 12/31/2015 - 03:58

Tags

occupational fatalities

Occupational Health & Safety

Research

silica

coal miners

coal workers pneumoconiosis

Donald Rasmussen: Coal miners’ physician, humble man

cmonforton — Mon, 27 Jul 2015 12:57:55 +0000

Donald Rasmussen: Coal miners’ physician, humble man

[Updated below (8/3/15)]

The occupational health community, coal miners, their families and labor advocates are mourning the loss of physician Donald Rasmussen, 87.

“ In 1962, a young doctor from Manassa, Colorado, saw a help wanted advertisement in a medical journal needing doctors in Beckley at the then Miners Memorial Hospital. ‘I was looking for a place to set up practice after getting out of the Army,’ Rasmussen recalled. ‘I had never been to West Virginia and was a little skeptical about the move.’ But when the doctor arrived in Beckley he was impressed with what he saw. ‘The scenic beauty of the area, the wonderful people who lived here and the staff and the work going on at the Miners hospital were simply amazing.’"

“Rasmussen began working with coal miners, which would become his life’s mission. ‘Before I came here, I really had no exposure or knowledge about coal miner’s lung disease, known today as black lung,’ he said. Rasmussen says he began to see many miners who experienced shortness of breath and other trouble with their lungs and breathing. ‘I was asked to evaluate some of the miners.’”

"…For coal miners and their families, Rasmussen became known as the ‘doctor with a heart.’ But Rasmussen said he was just doing his job. “I wasn’t trying to take one side over another,” he explained. ‘But I saw a lot of injustice being done to coal miners and their families.’"

Evan Smith with the Appalachian Citizens’ Law Center writes:

"There is no single source that can catch the breadth of his work, but any account of the black lung movement and the current state of the disease must include his name. In the early days of the black lung movement, Dr. Rasmussen was one of the key players in the group called Physicians for the Miners’ Health and Safety that provided medical support for miners’ experiences with black lung—a disease that most of the medical community refused to acknowledge at the time.

Dr. Rasmussen’s evidence-based approach and detailed research helped to prove that coal-mine dust causes breathing problems that may not show up on x-ray and may not show up without quality exercise testing. Dr. Rasmussen’s advocacy contributed to the passage of the landmark 1969 Coal Act which set the first federal limits on miners’ exposure to coal-mine dust and created the federal black lung benefits system for miners disabled by the disease.

The Charleston (WV) Gazette’s Paul J. Nyden explains Rasmussen’s role in the larger fight for worker health and safety:

“Rasmussen, Dr. Isadore E. Buff and Dr. Hawey Wells helped spark growing concerns about black lung disease throughout the coalfields, when they spoke in union halls, schools and churches. The black lung issue came to statewide and national attention after a Nov. 20, 1968, methane and coal dust explosion killed 78 miners in Consolidation Coal’s No. 9 Mine between Mannington and Fairmont in Marion County. “

“In the wake of that tragedy, miners at the East Gulf Mine near Rhodell walked out on strike on Feb. 18, 1969, protesting the failure of the state Legislature to pass black lung legislation. By March 5, when the state Senate began debating the bill, more than 40,000 of the state’s 43,000 miners were on strike. Rasmussen, Buff and Wells played a central role in backing the strike and pressuring the state Legislature to pass its first black lung law. They helped counter many medical professionals who continued to deny that black lung was a serious health threat. After then-Gov. Arch Moore signed the bill on March 11, miners returned to work the next morning. “

Rasmussen's early papers include "Pulmonary impairment in southern West Virginia coal miners" (Am Rev Respir Dis (1968)), "Respiratory function in southern Appalachian coal miners (Am Rev Respir Dis (1971)), "Patterns of physiological impairment in coal workers' pneumoconiosis" (Ann N Y Acad Sci (1972)), and "Impairment of oxygen transfer in dyspneic, nonsmoking soft coal miners (J Occup Med (1971)).

Physicians who worked with Dr. Rasmussen are offering their own tributes. Karen Mulloy, an occupational medicine physician at Case Western Reserve University told me:

“He was an exceptional human being. I had the privilege of working for him for 5 years from 1970 to
1975. It was my first job in the medical field, as a cardio-pulmonary technician, testing the miners in his lab for Black Lung. His compassion for the miners and his righteous anger over the inequities that faced them and the coal companies refusal to make the coal mines safe was more than inspiring. His example of how a doctor of the people could be was the reason I went to medical school and has been the guiding principle of my life.”

Robert Cohen, MD, an expert in pulmonary medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, told me:

“I first met Don in 1994 at a Black Lung clinics conference and have been in touch with him, advised by him, and mentored by him ever since. He was a gentle, soft spoken man with a huge heart, who worked tirelessly to merge science and clinical medicine with his passion for social justice, and in this case, to give coal miners a fair shake in the battle to be compensated for their occupational illness."

"His early work on the exercise physiology of black lung disease lead to the inclusion of exercise testing with arterial blood gases in the black lung disability evaluation regulations. “

J. Davitt McAteer, one of the nation's leading experts on miners' health and safety, added this:

"When the definitive history of the black lung issue is written, Dr. Donald Rasmussen will be recognized as the central figure. By bringing scientific evidence to the debate, he created the momentum which resulted in the passage of state and federal laws to protect miners' health."

McAteer attended Dr. Rasmussen's memorial service and sent along a copy of a eulogy. It was offered by Craig Robinson who was a VISTA volunteer in the 1960's when he first met Dr. Rasmussen. Robinson remarks on a recent meeting of Rasmussen and former ABC anchor Ted Koppel.

Joe Main, the assistant secretary of labor for mine safety and health, and former H&S director for the United Mine Workers issued a statement saying:

“The coal mining community has lost one of its most passionate advocates. …Dr. Rasmussen was a humble man, and he would say he was merely a physician performing his duty to his patients. But for so many of us who shared his vision, he was a hero. He will be greatly missed by miners and their families across the country whose lives he touched.”

Dr. Rasmussen passed away on July 23. He continued to see patients in his clinic until May 2015 when he suffered a fall. His family says “he’s now moved his offices upstairs.”

[Update (8/3/15): The New York Times' published on 8/2/15 an obituary about Dr. Rasmussen entitled "Crusader for Coal Miners' Health."]

cmonforton Mon, 07/27/2015 - 08:57

Tags

Miners Memorial Hospital

Coal dust, lung disease and 5 months of a new worker safety rule

cmonforton — Thu, 22 Jan 2015 16:53:45 +0000

Coal dust, lung disease and 5 months of a new worker safety rule

The AP headline read: “Regulators: Coal dust samples compliant with new rule.” The accompanying story was based on a news release issued by the Mine Safety and Health Administration on January 15. News outlets throughout US coal mining regions picked up the AP story. It said this:

Federal regulators say samples collected from U.S. mines last year found the lowest levels of breathable coal dust since stepped-up efforts aimed at reducing miners’ exposure. The U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration says nearly 99 percent of samples taken from August through December at underground and surface mines were compliant with a new federal rule.

The “new federal rule” was issued by MSHA in April 2014 to address miners’ exposure to respirable coal dust and lung disease associated with it. It becomes fully effective in August 2016. The new rule includes reducing the permissible exposure limit (PEL) for respirable coal dust from 2.0 mg/m3 to 1.5 mg/m3, requiring continuous monitoring of coal dust levels, and eliminating the practice of using an average of five dust samples to determine whether a citation will be issued for violating the PEL.

The AP story headline “Coal dust samples compliant with new rule” caught my attention. I had to read MSHA’s announcement for myself. MSHA chief Joe Main wrote:

“The [annual] average dust level in samples collected by MSHA inspectors in 2014 dropped to an average of 0.70 mg/m3.That compares to 0.83 m/m3 in 2009.”

I thought it was a little funny seeing MSHA announce these findings by reporting “average dust level” to characterize workers’ exposure to coal dust. It's been a contentious, two decades-long fight by MSHA to get away from a requirement to rely on the average of sample results to take enforcement action.

A key provision in its new regulations is being able to determine a mine operator's compliance with dust limits based on the results of a single full-shift sample. The trouble with the old MSHA system was that workers doing certain jobs were overexposed to coal mine dust, but the average of samples from workers doing different tasks was not over the PEL. If the average result wasn't over the PEL, the mine operator did not receive a citation to force correction of the dusty conditions.

This reporting by MSHA of the annual average coal dust level just seems strange. It's like reporting the average speed limit on an interstate highway. The annual average speed may be 50 miles per hour. But what I’d like to know is how many times and the circumstances when vehicles are caught going 10, 20 or more MPH over the speed limit. MSHA telling us that in 2014 the annual average dust levels in coal mines was 0.7 mg/m3 seems meaningless.

The other thing that struck me in MSHA’s announcement was this:

For the period August 1 through December 31, 2014, “the dust samples collected by MSHA and mine operators… show extremely high compliance with the new standards, with 99% of the 23,600 valid samples meeting compliance levels.”

The trouble is, there is no new compliance level. The current exposure limit---2.0 mg/m3—remains in place. A more protective exposure limit of 1.5 mg/m3 will not take effect until August 2016. All the “99%” tells me is that US mine operators have no trouble whatsoever complying with a PEL that’s been in place for more than 30 years.

What would have been informative is the percentage of samples with dust concentrations at or below the pending 1.5 mg/m3 exposure limit. The mining industry has been moaning and groaning that adopting this more protective level is infeasible. But as MSHA noted in its final rule, for some key mining tasks more than 50 percent of samples collected by MSHA were not only below the 1.5 mg/m3 level, but already at levels at or below 1.0 mg/m3.

For 20 years, coal mine operators been allowed to run their operations with dust levels that NIOSH concluded would cause thousands of case of lung disease.I still can’t help but think that Labor Secretary Tom Perez and MSHA chief Joe Main missed an opportunity to require an even more protective 1.0 mg/m3 PEL.

cmonforton Thu, 01/22/2015 - 11:53

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Occupational Health & Safety

Some of that must be expected. As much as political pressures mount, the current administration attempts a defensive move to show both progress and that the dire rants of the coal miners were just rants. Sadly, this is the world we live in.

Daylight saving time and public health consequences

cmonforton — Mon, 10 Mar 2014 08:04:49 +0000

Daylight saving time and public health consequences

It started with a yawn. Then a conversation about whether daylight savings time (DST) begins too early in the year. "On Monday, kids will be going to school in the dark and with one hour less sleep," said my mom. My brother remarked: “There are more accidents in the days immediately following the time change.” I was skeptical about his car accident remark, but didn’t want to open my mouth without some facts. Here’s some of what I learned with just a minute of searching on PubMed.

Researchers with Stanford University School of Humanities and Sciences assembled data from U.S. fatal automobile accidents over a 21 year period. Varughese and Allen examined the mean number of accidents on the weekend of the time change, and compared it to the weekends immediately before and after the time shift. The authors reported a significant increase in fatal motor vehicle accidents on the Monday immediately following the springtime switch to DST (t = 1.92 (p = 0.034)).

Researchers with the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm also examined the rate of motor vehicle accidents on the first Monday of DST, and the Monday’s immediately preceding and following the switch. Lambe and Cummings used data from the Swedish National Road Administration for crashes occurring from 1984 through 1995. The rate was calculated as the number of incidents per 1000 person-years for each of the study years. In the springtime switch, they reported an accident rate ratio of 1.11 (95% CI, 0.93-1.31) for the Monday immediately following DST implementation. The rate ratio in the fall declined to 0.98 (95% CI, 0.84-1.15) when individuals potentially gained one hour of sleep.

Cathleen Zick with the University of Utah examined whether DST led to greater engagement by adults in physical activity. She used data from BLS's American Time Use Survey for the periods 2003-2009. Zick compared responses to the survey’s “moderate-to-vigorous physical activity” (MVPA) variable from respondents in Colorado, New Mexico and Utah. She compared that data to responses from Arizona residents, a state that does not observe DST. She found that despite the additional evening hour of daylight, adults aged 18-64 did not affect time spent on MVPA.

Researchers with William Beaumont Hospital in suburban Detroit examined the incidence of acute myocardial infarction (AMI) over one-week periods of time from the switches to and from DST. Jiddou and colleagues reported an incident rate of 1.17 (95% CI 1.00 to 1.36) for the week following the time change. They indicated that the greatest increase in AMI occurred on the Sunday immediately after the spring shift to DST (1.71, 95% confidence interval 1.09 to 2.02; p <0.05).

Other studies in the literature include evaluations of a DTS effect on the sleep/wake cycle of college students (here), diurnal pattern of urban PM10 (here), cyber loafing (here), and work-related injuries (here, here), including those among coal miners (here).

I was skeptical of my brother’s assertion of a daylight saving effect. I shouldn’t have been.

cmonforton Mon, 03/10/2014 - 04:04

Tags

Environmental health

Occupational Health & Safety

physical activity

Research

safety

acute myocardial infarction

We need to get rid of the twice-yearly clock changes altogether: pick one "time" and keep it all year, permanently.

The original rationale for DST was to conserve candles, and more recently, conserve energy spent on lighting at one or the other end of the day. In the end that's nonsense because lighting is used either in the morning or in the evening, and the difference is probably insignificant including in the all-important metric of CO2 output (which of course wouldn't be an issue if we were on renewables + nuclear instead of 19th century energy sources).

When DST started, people typically had two clocks: a main clock in the house, and an alarm clock. Optionally a pocket watch or wrist watch. Changing the time setting on an analog clock is easy: pull out the knob and twist.

Today there are clocks on every conceivable device, and changing most of them is a royal pain in the arse that involves dealing with contextual menus and other garbage foisted upon us by idiots who know nothing about user-interface design. The sheer hassle factor in and of itself should be sufficient to get rid of the yearly clock-changes.

But if there are public health consequences such as an increase in heart attacks and auto accidents, then there's no excuse for sticking to the present system.

Question is, who is pestering Congress about this?

I love daylight savings time. When I get out of work and have that extra hour of sunlight, it is a boon. It may not encourage me to exercise, but I sure seem to live more life!

Are Americans (an people inthe industrialized world in general) so sleep deprived that missing a single extra hour on Saturday night can cause them to be more at risk for distraction-related accidents? Why not just go to bed earlier on Sunday to make up the hour? Or is it the fact that it's darking in the morning again all of the sudden that makes people sluggish?

Dismissing a widow’s plea, just another reason to dislike the coal industry

cmonforton — Mon, 07 Oct 2013 09:27:58 +0000

Dismissing a widow’s plea, just another reason to dislike the coal industry

Steven O’Dell, 27, went to work on November 30, 2012 for his “hoot owl” shift at Alpha Natural Resources’ Pocahontas Coal Mine. He never came home. O’Dell was fatally crushed between two pieces of mobile mining equipment. Three weeks after his death, his wife Caitlin gave birth to their son Andrew.

The young widow wants to make sure that another miner’s family doesn’t have to suffer the pain and grief that she’s endured. As reported by The Charleston Gazette’s Ken Ward, Jr. Caitlin O’Dell spoke last week before the West Virginia Board of Coal Mine Health and Safety, urging them to require mine operators to install “proximity detection” devices on mobile equipment. The devices can be programmed to give warning signals or shut down mobile equipment when it gets too close to workers. Had such a device been installed in the equipment around which Steve O’Dell had been working, his life could have been saved. At least four proximity detection systems specifically designed for underground mining equipment are commercially available.

Quoting from the Gazette’s story, Caitlin O’Dell told board members:

"I'm here to ask you to stop history from repeating itself. You have an opportunity today to change history for the next family. It's too late for mine. “

The Board of Coal Mine Health and Safety is authorized by a West Virginia state law, and meets at least monthly. Its primary responsibility is reviewing existing regulations and promulgating new rules to enhance health and safety for the state’s coal miners. Three members of the board are appointed to “represent the viewpoint of those [mine] operators in this state" and three members "represent the viewpoint of the working mines in this state.” Currently, the three labor representatives are with the United Mine Workers and the three industry appointees are with Arch Coal, Patriot Coal and the West Virginia Coal Association.

Ken Ward, Jr. described what happened after the young widow made her case to the Board.

“Board members expressed their sympathies to Mrs. O'Dell. They admired her 9-month-old son, and they thanked her for coming to ‘put a face’ on the issue. Then, the board's three industry representatives voted to block two different motions from their United Mine Workers counterparts to move forward with ‘proximity detection’ rules.”

"Board member Chris Hamilton, a West Virginia Coal Association vice president, said the matter needs further study and discussion.”

The three labor representatives voted down Hamilton's proposal to conduct meetings around West Virginia to discuss the devices, as well as alternatives to them, such as reflective clothing and strobe lights. The coal industry's excuse that more study is needed on the devices---devices that are already commercially available---is just another reason the public has little respect for the coal industry.

As Ward noted, with an equally divided Board, inaction continues by the State to require proximity detection devices. He also reminds us that federal action on this life-saving equipment is also stalled.

In August 2011, the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) in the Department of Labor published a proposal to require proximity detection devices. The agency indicated that coal miners face a “grave danger” and that these devices would prevent fatal injuries. The agency, however, has yet to finalize that rule.

Mine worker in the U.S. continue to die on-the-job after being struck by mobile equipment. Earlier this year, John Myles, 44, was killed this way at the Affinity Mine in West Virginia. So to was Nathanial Clarida, 35, at a Peabody Energy mine in Illinois.

Following MSHA’s investigation of the fatality at the Affinity Mine, the operator installed proximity detection devices on two pieces of mobile coal mining equipment. For John Myles and his family, that's too little too late.

cmonforton Mon, 10/07/2013 - 05:27

Tags

November 30, 2013 has not happened yet. Presumably you meant 2012, based upon other time hints from the rest of the article,

Chino,
Thanks for catching that error. I've corrected it.

Nothing's Too Good For My Precious Pooch, or, Why Our Planet Is Dying

thusspakezuska — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 08:30:12 +0000

Nothing's Too Good For My Precious Pooch, or, Why Our Planet Is Dying

This past Friday morning, as per my usual routine, I sat down to read the Philadelphia Inquirer with my coffee and breakfast. And I came across an article that nearly made me vomit back all that delicious Toy Cow Farms blueberry yoghurt I had just spooned down. I refer, of course, to the piece on the "quaint Victorian home" shared by Darla, Chelsea, and Coco Puff.

Their dwelling has a cedar-shake roof, vaulted ceilings, and hardwood floors, heating and air-conditioning, moldings and casement windows, drapery with valences, and fanciful wallpapers.

At Christmas, music from the RCA Victor radio carried outside to a grassy yard surrounded by a white picket fence. A sign on the porch reads: "Three spoiled dogs live here."

Yes. Darla, Chelsea, and Coco Puff are dogs. They live in a home that cost "$20,000 in construction, transport, and equipment, if [you include] the painting, landscaping, screened doors and windows, miniblinds, and ceiling fans, as well as the yard with artificial turf." (Do follow the link and check out the photo.)

The doggie mansion, at 8 by 11 feet, has just slightly fewer square feet of living space than the room my mother now calls home at the assisted living facility. The dogs at least have their own yard to poop in. My mother has to go down the hall to a shared bathroom. This is the best facility we can afford for her on her monthly income, without spending down her investments. (We have been hanging on to her investments for the time we can see coming when she will need nursing care, which is much more expensive than assisted living. I don't have to tell you what has happened to her investments over the last year.)

I traveled to western Pennsylvania today to be with mom for the next five days or so. On Monday, she is going to move into a new room, basically the same size as the old one. This room was once someone's office, in a building that was once her high school. It is reasonably nice, with an attractive (though not fanciful) wallpaper and new carpet. Underneath the new carpet is extra padding, which bespeaks the reason for the move. Mom has begun having frequent falls. The staff at the AL facility felt it would be safer for her to live in the part of the facility with more intensive oversight of residents, rather than where she is now, in the section for residents who need somewhat less care.

This is no doubt the best thing for my mother, and there are even some benefits to the move beyond enhanced oversight and thus more safety. Her current room has one small window which looks out on an interior courtyard rooftop. Because of constraints presented by the room layout, the only place to put her recliner chair is with its back to the window - so she can't even see out the small window with no view. The new room has two large windows with views of trees, hillsides, houses, a street. She'll see more life and activity out of these windows - indeed, even being able to see out the windows at all is a major plus. She'll be able to see out them from both her chair and her bed.

But it is hard to go through this move with her. She doesn't want to move. It was hard enough to move from home to the AL facility. She lived in the house she was (literally) born in, for 79 years, before the move. Over the past year, she has managed to make her tiny room feel like a home to her. Many times, in recounting conversations she's had with other residents, she has let me know that they refer to their rooms as their houses. So this isn't really just a simple room change. It's leaving home all over again. Even though she often complains about various aspects of her room, it is her house, and I am complicit with the staff in evicting her from it.

The move also signifies another step downhill to her, another small loss of autonomy. My mother does not like the idea of needing to go into the area for higher-care residents, and indeed, she doesn't have much in common with many of them. She is more mobile than many of them, has much more of her mental faculties intact than many of them and, except for the weakness in her legs and balance problems, can handle more activities of daily living than many of them. Yet there are signs that some things are beginning to slip. She is at the top of the slippery slope, and does not like it, not one bit. It is my chore to help her through this move, soothe her and ease her transition, and try to start the process of making the new room feel like her "house" - and try to keep her spirits up through this.

So you see, when I look at this woman who used to run a household of nine people ranging in age and type from retired coal miner to toddler child; who used to run up and down the stairs from second to first floor, first to basement, basement out to back yard with laundry to hang, back into the house, back upstairs, over and over all day; who was a Girl Scout leader and Band Booster, a Civic Club member and a Rosary Altar Society member; who made sure we had books to read at home and access to the lending library in Carmichaels 14 miles away; who used to write me three letters a week when I was in college and talked me out of quitting engineering my freshman year when my advisor was no help at all; when I look at this woman reduced to life in a 9 by 11 foot former high school office room, and I see three dogs living in a custom-built $20,000 doggie mansion...

...well, I wanna do some serious shoe-pukin'.

You know, even if you don't give a crap about my mother's situation compared to the cushy life of these dogs - I mean, you could argue that my mother is living quite well compared to the situation of many a person on this planet - you should still be outraged. Because people like Tammy Kassis, with her "three spoiled dogs", living in a $20,000 heated and air-conditioned, decorated doghouse, are the reason this planet has so little chance of surviving our presence on it. If you asked Tammy what we should do about starving children in Africa - hell, about starving children in our own U.S. cities - do you think she would just reply "let them eat cake"? After all,

She has her eye on a small plasma-screen TV for her pups. "They love to watch Animal Planet," Kassis says. "It's their favorite."

Well, I suppose we ought to let the little pups enjoy it - while the planet is still able to support any animal life for us to film.

thusspakezuska Sun, 03/15/2009 - 04:30

Tags

Burns My Shorts

Isn't It Ironic?

Outrage of the Week

Tales From The Coal Patch

unsustainable consumption

Field Negro--also a Philadelphian--has written a lot about how white Americans treat their pets better than other human beings.

...you should still be outraged. Because people like Tammy Kassis, with her "three spoiled dogs", living in a $20,000 heated and air-conditioned, decorated doghouse, are the reason this planet has so little chance of surviving our presence on it.

Nope. This is just one example of someone with more money than I have spending a chunk of it in a way that I consider silly (or wasteful or obscene or whatever description you want). There are others, some of which offend me personally more than the doggie example.

And "... so little chance of surviving our presence on it"? Please ... this is arrogance pure and simple. We couldn't destroy the planet if we tried. We can certainly degrade it in ways that some of us would find unacceptable, but let's not give humans more power than they have.

Although George Carlin is far from the only person to comment on this, his formulation is brief and pithy - "The planet is OK ... the people are fucked!!"

Dear Scott "Head In the Sand" Belyea: Perhaps you have not hearing about climate change, rising seas, decreasing biodiversity, widespread deforestation, increasing desertification, native plants threatened by invasives, declining bird populations, not to mention our polluted air, land, and water...no, I do not think the planet is OK. But enjoy your blissful ignorance while it lasts.

Sure, the "earth" wont be destroyed. Its a giant ball of rock. What people mean by "earth" is the ecosystem we live on. I understand the point, being deliberately obtuse so as to deny the degradation of the ecosystem to one that is at best miserable to live in.

Wow, that dog house is bigger than Bernie Madoff's cell ...

I think Scott's point is that the planet will survive, with new species evolving to fill the niche created by large crumbling buildings after we are gone. It might even sort of survive when its sun goes into its red giant stage.

What Scott misses is that her actions will speed the day when her children will struggle to survive in the absence of petro-fertilized crops. Even that nice artificial green turf yard helped deplete what is left of our oil. But it might be that she is spending money on dogs in lieu of children and doesn't care about that.

What is really nuts is that someone has a business building these dog houses, and that they moved this one from their old home to a new one!

BTW, my own theory is that building houses out of wood is a form of carbon sequestration, just not a very good one.

Yeah, it only takes 10-30 million years for global ecosystems to recover from a big mass extinction event. It's really not such a big deal - as long as you're not irrationally emotionally attached to one of the species that goes extinct.

Zuska, I don't think you get Scott's point. All the calamities you describe may well make the planet unlivable for the likes of us, and then when we all die a miserable death or are at least reduced to a final few that have survived the massive wars that will result, but in the end life of some form will go on without us. Life in all its forms have no special place for the Earth of today or even of 500 years ago -- life just goes on living in one form or another. We along with a great many species may rely on the Earth of today, but not life in general.

I agree with everything you say above. The following is a little off topic but hopefully will help with what is coming.

My mother started down her slippery slope two years ago. We are the sandwich generation with children on one shoulder and aging parents on the other. Our culture is not set up for this. We have entered into uncharted territory with such long lifespans. I hope I don't offend when I say that the dying process when it comes will be difficult for all involved. A good book on the subject:

http://www.amazon.com/How-We-Die-Reflections-Chapter/dp/0679742441

It was a living nightmare (and this is how most people describe it) with my mother suffocating from heart failure and put on morphine to keep her unconscious. Morphine, I learned, actually extends the life of dying heart patients by unloading the heart. When she awoke calling "Help me" we increased the dose.

Basically, I had given permission to starve my mother to death by carrying out her do not resuscitate orders, which withheld all medications, water, and food. Sores were developing. The nightmare lasted 12 days. I was lucky to be there, holding her hand when she took her last breath. I just wish she hadn't suffered so. I've been told this is how most of our parents die now. It is wrong. Something has to change. Washington State has passed a death with dignity law along with Oregon. I just hope I have the strength and wisdom to take advantage of it when my time comes. Again, please forgive me if I have offended by talking about death while your mother is still alive.

The question is not whether the Earth will survive us (it will); it's whether we (and other species like us) will survive the changes that we're effecting to the Earth. I agree that that seems pretty unlikely when there are people whose dogs have as significant a carbon footprint as a person in a wealthy, industrialized nation.

On what level can dogs possibly care that some thrips-brained human spent $20,000 to provide them with a landscaped, air-conditioned kennel with hardwood floors and miniblinds? This isn't even about loving pets -- it's about loving money. Seriously, obsessively loving it to the exclusion of all things alive, human or otherwise.

Amazing what people will do to avoid training their dogs.

Yo people. If you and they had had the gumption to plan ahead a bit and try to develop preventative treatments, your momma might still be happy and healthy. Instead you decided you would like to impose your morals on everyone else an the future generations by avoiding research on anti aging therapies.

Check out the methelusah foundation (www.mprize.org) for examples of how this attitude still prevails. Being fairly young, if you don't support anti aging, remember I will be laughing at you when you are old and feeble and suffering, as you would apparently so gladly have others be.

wow, Gregor, that's an amazingly insensitive thing to say to someone writing about her mother's experience with aging. Zuska would certainly not be overstepping any boundaries by banning you outright.

Ditto for me...your ass should be banned!

I was not addressing Zuska in isolation, but rather the populace in general, and I made that clear enough.

If there had been as little research on fundamental cancer therapies for the past 50 years, and you replaced "aging" with "cancer," it would easier to see how my post is appropriate.

No regrets, no apologies.

Gregor, you are an insensitive selfish ass. Your post was not in any way appropriate, especially after Russ Finley's heartbreaking post - you just came across as downright rude. Go off into your nut zone of the "methelusah" project (and maybe learn to spell it) and leave us alone here. The last thing our over-consuming society needs is people like Tammy Kassis living forever. Because of course, it's the jerks with tons of money who will pony up for shit like that - it won't be the poor folks in developing countries who get to take advantage of all your wonderful anti-aging discoveries. Gah. Go away and leave me alone.

Sometimes aging just sucks. I'm sorry. And I agree that the doggie houses are outrageous. Remember what happened to Marie A? Unfortunately that kind of ostentatiousness sets up revolutions, which not only harm the careless perpetrators of extravagance, but ordinary people too, because violence begets violence and totalitarianism, not democracy. Those people who still have a say in it should think about that.

Is that 20K doghouse really worse than a 500K(depending on local housing costs) house for people?

Scott 1
Zuska 0
Gregor -1000

Zuska, I'm so sorry -- about your mom, and about the resident trolls being such asses. I don't think they even realise how bad they make themselves look, but you shouldn't have to deal with that kind of nonsense right now.

I hope your mom can get some comfort and enjoyment from her new view. Maybe you can get her a windowbox, which would allow her to expand her "domain" to a little way outside the room; my experience with my grandmother was that this gave her a degree of satisfaction, as a small way of pushing back against smaller digs.

I'm getting a house for my dogs. Why not? It's my hard earned money and if people have an issue with it OH WELL! LIFE is too short might as well enjoy every minute of it! By the way I'm a fan of Tammy Kassis!!!!