cmonforton | January 4, 2011After being sworn-in on Wednesday (1/5/11), the new Republican-controlled House of Representatives are promising to do at least two things this week:
(1) read on the House floor the U.S. Constitution, and
(2) repeal the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), the healthcare overhaul bill that was signed into law by President Obama in March 2010.
Those aligned with the Tea Party movement are pumped up about these actions, but they seem like contradictions to me.
The U.S. Constitution, adopted in 1787, begins with the idealist proclamation:"We the people of the United…
lborkowski | January 4, 2011Liz and Celeste are on vacation, so we're re-posting some content from our old site.
By Liz Borkowski, orginally posted 12/3/09
Twenty-five years ago, thousands of residents of Bhopal, India awoke in the middle of the night struggling to breathe. A Union Carbide pesticide plant had leaked 40 tons of methyl isocyanate, a highly toxic substance that had escaped in gas form and spread quickly through the densely populated city. The Indian Council on Medical Research estimates that between 8,000 and 10,000 people died in the first three days after the catastrophe; another 25,000 perished later…
lborkowski | January 3, 2011Liz and Celeste are on vacation, so we're re-posting some content from our old site.
By Celeste Monforton, originally posted 3/11/10
I think the ghost of Tony Mazzocchi is haunting me. Every day for the last 10 days, I've been presented with narratives, videos, testimony and phone calls about the workers who are compelled or forced to become whistleblowers. It started with a student asking me about Karen Silkwood which opened the door for me to explain the OCAW/Mazzocchi-Silkwood connection and the vital contribution of whistleblowers in exposing deadly health and safety problems in work…
lborkowski | December 31, 2010Liz and Celeste are on vacation, so we're re-posting some content from our old site.
By Liz Borkowski, originally posted 3/22/10
Today is World Water Day, when the United Nations draws attention to the importance of freshwater and advocates for sustainable water-resource management. This year, the focus is on water quality, which is declining worldwide.
According to the World Health Organization, each year 3.4 million people - most of them children - die from water-related diseases. That includes 1.4 million children dying from diarrhea annually, and 860,000 children perishing directly or…
lborkowski | December 30, 2010Liz and Celeste are on vacation, so we're re-posting some content from our old site.
By Celeste Monforton, originally posted 11/3/09
"How can it be safe with this line so fast?" .... "Come to the plant and you will see." ..."when a visitor comes they slow it down and when they leave they speed it up." "The line is too fast." "People say their hands hurt a lot." ...."Many people are injured and then they fire them."
These are the voices of 455 meatpacking plant workers in Nebraska -- not 100 years ago in Upton Sinclair's time, but from surveys conducted in 2007 and 2008 by the Nebraska…
lborkowski | December 29, 2010Liz and Celeste are on vacation, so we're re-posting some content from our old site.
By Celeste Monforton, originally posted 4/5/10
The painful and deadly toll that asbestos imposes on families across the globe is a public health problem of growing magnitude. In the U.S., individuals who are diagnosed today with asbestos-related disease may trace their exposure to the lethal mineral fibers back several decades. The number of new cases of asbestos-related disease in the U.S. has not yet plateaued, and may not for years. Globally, the World Health Organization estimates that 125 million…
lborkowski | December 28, 2010Liz and Celeste are on vacation, so we're re-posting some content from our old site.
By Liz Borkowski, originally posted 11/6/09
Earlier today, the Senate Democratic Policy Committee held a hearing on the use of burn pits for trash at military bases in Iraq and Afghanistan - a practice that may be exposing thousands of soldiers and civilians to carcinogens, respiratory irritants, and neurotoxins. A particularly large burn pit at the Balad Air Base in Iraq has been getting a lot of attention, but the use of burn pits seems to be widespread at these military bases.
As DPC Chair Senator Byron…
lborkowski | December 27, 2010Liz and Celeste are on vacation, so we're re-posting some content from our old site.
By Liz Borkowski, originally posted 11/3/09
New York-based Fairbank Farms is recalling more than 500,000 pounds of ground beef products that may be contaminated with E. coli O157:H7. Gardiner Harris reports in the New York Times that two people - one from New Hampshire and one from New York - have died after eating the ground beef suspected of contamination, and more than two dozen people have fallen ill. [Note: This is a re-post from 2009, so don't go running to look for this beef in your fridge. Up-to-date…
lborkowski | December 24, 2010A few of the recent pieces I've liked:
Patricia Callahan and Trine Tsouderos in the Chicago Tribune: Chronic Lyme disease: A dubious diagnosis (via Orac, who critiques the backlash against the article)
The Economist: Migrant farm workers: Fields of tears
Christina Larson in Yale Environment 360: In China, a New Transparency on Government Pollution Data
Tracy Weber and Charles Ornstein at ProPublica: Med Schools Flunk at Keeping Faculty off Pharma Speaking Circuit
Adam Serwer in The American Prospect: Necessary and Proper ("Liberals can't make an effective constitutional case for the…
lborkowski | December 23, 2010United States Senator Bernard Sanders, Independent of Vermont, received this year's Paul Wellstone Award at the Activist Dinner on 7 November in Denver, during the annual meeting of the American Public Health Association. Dr. Anthony Robbins presented the award "for his principled support for a universal comprehensive health care system..."
Senator Sanders prepared this video for the activists who attended. During his 10-minute address (skip to 0:40 for the start of remarks), Senator Sanders focuses on the new healthcare law and explains why he voted for it, what it does for prevention and…
lborkowski | December 22, 2010Earlier this month, a bill that would have provided medical benefits and compensation for 9/11 first responders passed the House but couldn't overcome a Republican filibuster. (Remember the old days of majority rule in the Senate, when 51 votes was enough to pass most legislation? We're in a different era now.)
Senators Kirsten Gillibrand and Charles Schumer of New York have now made alterations to the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act and hope it will now be able to attract enough Republican votes. The overall cost of the bill has dropped from $7.4 billion to $6.2 billion as a…
cmonforton | December 21, 2010By the end of 2011, the Labor Department's worker safety agencies expect to issue six new rules to better protect workers from on-the-job hazards. In the Department's regulatory plan issued yesterday, OSHA projects it will finalize four rules while MSHA expects to complete two new standards. As I've written before, these plans quickly become stale because target dates are missed, new issues emerge and political winds shift, but they still give us a snapshot inside the agencies and the Administration's regulatory strategies at a moment in time.
Of the four rules OSHA expects to finish in…
cmonforton | December 20, 2010Updated 12/21/2010
Every two weeks, OSHA issues a mini-newsletter called Quick Takes about the agency's activities and other worker health and safety news. The twice monthly electronic publication highlights 8-12 items and nearly always includes at least one report of a major enforcement action. I looked back at the OSHA Quick Takes from early 2010 and read gutsy language from OSHA chief David Michaels, such as:"It is unfortunate but true that you need a sizable fine to get the attention of employers who don't respect the lives of their employees." (Vol 9, Issue 2)
I started to wonder…
lborkowski | December 17, 2010Less than two months after taking office, President Obama issued a memorandum on scientific integrity, which stated:
The public must be able to trust the science and scientific process informing public policy decisions. Political officials should not suppress or alter scientific or technological findings and conclusions. If scientific and technological information is developed and used by the Federal Government, it should ordinarily be made available to the public. To the extent permitted by law, there should be transparency in the preparation, identification, and use of scientific and…
lborkowski | December 17, 2010by Eileen Senn, MS
OSHA's intention to finalize a list of chemicals on which to focus the agency's efforts to address outdated rules on workplace chemical exposures was officially announced in the December 1 issue of OSHA Quick Takes and described in my November 17 post, "OSHA Poised to Action on Chemical Hazards." No matter what approach or combination of approaches OSHA ultimately takes on chemical exposures, employer education and training must lay the foundation for voluntary compliance and enforcement. OSHA will need to undertake a campaign to teach employers, employees, and union…
egrossman | December 16, 2010by Elizabeth Grossman
In an incident that brings to mind the Triangle factory fire that took place in New York almost 100 years ago, the fire that broke out on December 14th on the 9th and 10th floors of the building housing the Ha-meem Group's "That's It Sportswear" factory in the Ashalia industrial district outside Dhaka, Bangladesh killed at least two dozen workers, and injured scores more. Electrical short-circuiting is a primary cause being investigated for the fire that occurred Tuesday while a reported 200 to 300 of the factory's approximately 5,000 or more workers were on lunch break…
lborkowski | December 15, 2010The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette is running a fascinating in-depth series on air pollution in Western Pennsylvania. While it's got a local focus, I'm sure people from other regions can identify with some of the problems it highlights, like the difficulties in regulating pollution that easily crosses state lines and the frustration of seeing inadequate Clean Air Act enforcement.
The series also delves into issues of epidemiology. In the introductory article, Region at risk: Can higher rates of death be linked to air pollution?, Don Hopey and Devid Templeton explain that the Post-Gazette analyzed…
lborkowski | December 14, 2010Yesterday a federal judge struck down the new healthcare law's individual mandate, which requires everyone to have health insurance. (Actually, the mandate doesn't apply to everyone: those who'd have to spend more than 8% of their income on coverage are exempt, as are undocumented immigrants - and if you don't have coverage, you pay a fine.) US District Judge Henry E. Hudson ruled that the individual mandate is unconstitutional, but he did not strike down other portions of the law or issue an injunction against its implementation. Two other district court judges have found the mandate…
egrossman | December 14, 2010
New Solutions: The Drawing Board is a monthly feature produced by the journal New Solutions. Read more about it here.
By Charles Levenstein and Dominick Tuminaro
[In press, International Union Rights journal, volume 17(4), due out 20 December; posted with permission]
There is an important intersection between the movements for international trade union rights and worker health and safety. Both recognize that core trade union rights are also human rights.
On April 2, 2010, Ji-Yeon Park, a 23 year old former worker at a Samsung factory in South Korea, was buried, the victim of a blood cancer…
egrossman | December 13, 2010by Elizabeth Grossman
On November 30th, the Louisiana Bucket Brigade (LABB) released a bulletin reporting on the accidental release of sulfur dioxide at the Murphy Oil refinery in Meraux, Louisiana. The Bucket Brigade tracks these releases as part of its work to reduce refinery accidents, and they explain that the November 30th release is "just one of several refinery-related incidents in St. Bernard's Parish" reported around Thanksgiving weekend. On November 24th, the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality recorded "spikes" of sulfur dioxide in Chalmette, LA and on the 25th, there was…