lborkowski | November 17, 2010by Eileen Senn
After decades of dysfunction, OSHA is poised to do something about their badly outdated rules for occupational exposures to chemical hazards. Millions of U.S. workers are exposed to chemicals every day at work, such as asbestos fibers in insulation, asphalt fumes in roofing and road work, carbon monoxide gas from burning fuels, chlorine in disinfectants, formaldehyde in bonded wood, isocyanates in foam, lead in bullets and solder, liquid mercury in instruments and light bulbs, solvents in cleaning products and paints, and silica in concrete. Yet most standards for chemicals on…
lborkowski | November 16, 2010When severe flooding in Pakistan left millions of people without food, shelter, and water, I wrote a post wondering why that disaster was getting less attention than Haiti's earthquake. I suspected the gradual nature of the disaster was part of the problem, and commenters had additional suggestions, ranging from Haiti's closeness to the US to the US public's overall view of Pakistan as a nation.
Last week, The New York Times' Lydia Polgreen put some numbers on the Haitian earthquake vs. Pakistani floods comparison and delved into reasons for the disparity:
In all, $3.4 billion has been…
cmonforton | November 16, 2010On January 29, OSHA proposed a simple revision to a paper form---called the OSHA 300 log---on which some U.S. employers are required to record work-related injuries. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) collects a sample of these forms annually to estimate national rates of work-related injuries. The change proposed by OSHA involves adding a column to the form so that work-related musculoskeletal disorders (MSD) would be distinguished from other conditions like amputations, burns, fractures, etc. MSDs account for 30-60% of all work-related injuries and illnesses. They take a large toll on…
egrossman | November 16, 2010by Elizabeth Grossman
"We Trust You," says the sign over the entrance to a factory in the Pratama Abadi manufacturing complex that produces Nike footwear in Tangerang, Indonesia, a city of 1.4 million about 12 miles west of Jakarta. Just inside "Factory 1" hangs an enormous banner that reads (in English) "Craftsmanship - No Quality, No Work." It pictures an older man kneeling as he works with a hand tool. Below him, in Indonesian, is the phrase, "There is no work without quality." An image of Winged Victory - the original Nike - hovers above.
The first impressions upon entering Factory 1, a…
lborkowski | November 15, 2010Haiti's health ministry has reported that the death toll from the cholera epidemic has reached 917, and 14,642 victims have been hospitalized. The disease has been detected in six of the country's ten provinces, and the World Health Organization predicts that 200,000 Haitians will fall ill with cholera over the next six to 12 months.
The UN has made a plea for nearly $164 million in order to supply doctors, medicines, and water-purification equipment. The BBC points out that less than 40% of the aid for Haiti's post-earthquake reconstruction has reached the country, and the first portion of…
cmonforton | November 12, 2010Steven Lillicrap, 21, started his shift at about 7:30 am on a cold Feb 3, 2009 at a construction site near St. Louis, Missouri. He was an apprentice Operating Engineer and this was his first big assignment. He would be working with more experienced men to dismantle a 100-ton crawler crane. The crew was in a hurry because the company, Ben Hur Construction, Inc., needed the crane that day at another job site. (The firm runs 15-20 projects at a time.) Within a couple of hours, Steven Lillicrap was dead. He suffered chest crushing injuries when the safety lanyard he was wearing got caught…
lborkowski | November 11, 2010While Veterans Day is an opportunity to thank veterans for their service, it should also be a time to consider how well we're doing at taking care of veterans who've suffered physical or mental damage as a result of their service.
Our country wasn't sufficiently prepared to handle the toll that operations in Iraq and Afghanistan would take on our servicemembers. We can be grateful that battlefield medicine has improved, and that those like Marine Cpl. Todd Nicely can survive severe injuries (requiring a quadruple amputation in his case) and get advanced prosthetic limbs and extensive…
lborkowski | November 11, 2010The United Nations humanitarian office reports that 9,971 cases of cholera have been confirmed in Haiti, and 643 people have died from the disease.
The Associated Press reported earlier this week that the epidemic has spread into Port-au-Prince, where close to half of the city's nearly 3 million residents are living in tent camps erected for those left homeless after the January earthquake. Conditions in the camps have deteriorated as a result of Hurricane Tomas, and many fear the disease will spread quickly through Port-au-Prince's camps and slums.
Haitian healthcare workers and…
lborkowski | November 10, 2010Here at George Washington University this morning, Department of Health and Human Services officials unveiled a new strategy aimed at preventing new smoking habits and helping current smokers quit. One major component is the Food and Drug Administration's proposed rule requiring that all cigarette packages and advertising include one of nine health warnings (which will be larger and more noticeable than the current text on cigarette packs) and color graphic images that depict the negative health consequences of smoking.
The Tobacco Control Act that passed last year specified the nine text…
lborkowski | November 9, 2010This month marks the 10th anniversary of the Needlestick Safety and Prevention Act, which was passed in response to the problem of healthcare workers being exposed to bloodborne pathogens (HIV, hepatitis, etc.) via sharps injuries. The Act directed OSHA to modify its existing bloodborne pathogen standard to require that employers update their exposure control plans to reflect advances in technology (e.g., needleless systems and sharps with injury protection); maintain sharps injury logs; and solicit input from non-managerial employees potentially exposed to contaminated sharps. (View the…
lborkowski | November 8, 2010It's a relief that Hurricane Tomas didn't destroy the camps in and around Port-au-Prince where 1.3 million survivors of Haiti's January earthquake are crowded. The storm hit western Haiti hardest, causing flooding and killing 20 people.
There are still concerns about how flooding will affect Haiti's cholera outbreak. The outbreak's official death toll is 544, CNN reports, and more than 8,000 cholera cases have been confirmed. So far, none of the confirmed cases is in Port-au-Prince, but 91 residents of a Port-au-Prince slums are being tested to see if they've been infected.
Cholera…
lborkowski | November 5, 2010Researchers from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health analyzed data on nursing-home employees from the 2004 National Nursing Assistant Survey and learned the following about on-the-job violence:
Thirty-four percent of nursing assistants surveyed reported experiencing physical injuries from residents' aggression in the previous year. Mandatory overtime (odds ratio [OR] = 1.65; 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.22, 2.24) and not having enough time to assist residents with their activities of daily living (OR = 1.49; 95% CI = 1.25, 1.78) were strongly associated with…
lborkowski | November 4, 2010The United Nations Human Settlements Programme, UN-HABITAT, is tasked with promoting "socially and environmentally sustainable towns and cities with the goal of providing adequate shelter for all." The agency's new executive director, former Barcelona mayor Joan Clos, gave his first formal address to the UN General Assembly and outlined some of the priorities for improving settlements in the coming the years.
Clos started with some good news: between 2000 and 2010, the lives of 230 million slum dwellers were improved - an achievement that exceeds the Millennium Development Goal target of…
lborkowski | November 3, 2010John Perlin has written an interesting Miller-McCune article about how the Pentagon has come to understand some of the problems associated with powering Iraq and Afghanistan operations - and how they're now reducing operations' energy consumption and embracing solar power.
Perlin describes the experience of Lt. Gen. Richard Zilmer, who assumed command of the coalition forces in Iraq's Al Anbar province in 2006 and soon realized that his command's reliance on trucking in liquid fossil fossil fules was contributing to casualties. In today's conflicts, Marine combat brigade uses half a million…
cmonforton | November 3, 2010For the first time in the agency's history, the Labor Department's Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) went to federal court to ask that a dangerous coal mine be shut down until it fixes its safety problems once and for all. In its official complaint to the U.S.district court for the eastern district of Kentucky, the agency refers to Section 108(a)(2) saying:Massey Energy's Freedom Mine #1 is "engaged in a pattern of violation of mandatory health and safety standards that, in the Secretary's judgment, constitute a continuing hazard to the health or safety of miners."
MSHA's new…
cmonforton | November 3, 2010It's that time of year, when the Secretary of Labor is supposed to outline her rulemaking priorities for next 12 months. This would include new proposal to protect mine workers, like the 64 killed already this year, and the tens of thousands made ill by inadequate OSHA standards on exposure to chemicals. The Presidential Executive Order governing this process dictates that agencies' regulatory plans be published in October. Last year the Obama Administration didn't release its plan until December, but I chalked that delay to the stalled Senate confirmation of the President's reg czar,…
lborkowski | November 2, 2010The Associated Press article title "Study: Alcohol more lethal than heroin, cocaine" succeeded in getting me to click through to the article. When I did, I wasn't surprised to learn that the study in question didn't actually find alcohol to be more lethal than heroin. What it concluded was that alcohol is the most harmful drug (out of 20 studied) when harms both to users and to those around them are tallied.
The study -- authored by David J. Nutt, Leslie A. King, and Lawrence D. Phillips and published in The Lancet -- used multicriteria decision analysis modelling to assess the harms caused…
lborkowski | November 1, 2010Because electronics contain hazardous materials like lead and cadmium, workers who recycle e-waste need to be protected from harmful exposures. All too often, we hear of children in developing countries breaking down old computers with little or no protection. Here in the US, concerns also exist about the health and safety of prison employees and inmate laborers involved with recycling operations. Myron Levin reported for Fair Warning on October 6 that inmates at some federal facilities were demanding hazardous duty pay from Federal Prison Industries (also known as Unicor), a for-profit,…
egrossman | October 29, 2010by Elizabeth Grossman
Batam, one of Indonesia's Riau Islands, sits across the smog-choked strait from Singapore, just one degree north of the equator. On October 21 and 22, the days that I'm there, newspaper headlines announce that Singapore is experiencing its worst air pollution since 2006 due to fires, most likely from illegal forest clearing in Sumatra. From a high point above the harbor where we go to see the view, the ship traffic below is mostly obscured by gray haze. A tourist brochure extols the island's natural features, but what's most evident is rampant development. Enormous gaudy…
cmonforton | October 29, 2010I recently logged 1,300 miles in a rented white PT Cruiser traveling on I-94 from Chicago to Milwaukee and Madison, WI, down I-65 and I-74 to Cincinnati and up I-75 to Detroit. Along the way I saw dozens of road construction projects to expand traffic lanes, repair overpasses, and repave the road surface. Workers were dutifully wearing hard hats and reflective vests, but these protections seemed completely inadequate for the deadly hazards in their midst. Vehicles were zipping past within a few feet of the workers, with only a line of plastic barrels as a barrier. At one site near…