Celeste Monforton, DrPH, MPH
of Lecturer, Texas State University & Professorial Lecturer Milken Institute School of Public Health.
cmonforton
Posts by this author
June 28, 2012
Just two weeks ago, families of the 29 men who were killed on April 5, 2010 at Massey Energy's Upper Big Branch (UBB) mine traveled to Washington DC to urge lawmakers to improve our nation's mine safety law. The West Virginia natives met with Republican and Democratic Members of Congress and…
June 27, 2012
It's not the first time that Kenneth Rosenman, MD has provided scientific evidence on the deficiencies in the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) annual survey of occupational injuries and illnesses, and it won't be the last. His latest study, written with Joanna Kica, MPA, with Michigan State…
June 21, 2012
It's been almost two years since Daniel Noel, 47, and Joel Schorr, 38, went to work at Barrick Goldstrike's Meikle mine near Elko, Nevada, but never made it back home to their families. They were fatally crushed on August 12, 2010 in a mine shaft by tons of falling aggregate and pipe. As I wrote…
June 19, 2012
Researchers with the CDC's National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) report in the current issue of Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (Vol. 16, No. 23) on the prevalence of dust diseases of the lungs among U.S. surface coal miners. Based on chest x-rays performed on 2,238…
June 12, 2012
A panel of scientific experts convened by the World Health Organization's (WHO) International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) concluded today that diesel engine exhaust is carcinogenic to humans. Previously, the IARC classification for diesel exhaust was "probably carcinogenic to humans,"…
June 11, 2012
Tobacco companies did it. Asbestos-peddlers did it. Chromium users did it. The list goes on and on. When polluters and manufacturers of dangerous products feel threatened by scientific evidence that their pet compound is carcinogenic to humans, they will do everything money can by to avoid the…
June 8, 2012
The Pump Handle reported on May 4, 2012 that the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) had scrubbed clean its website of documents on an abruptly withdrawn proposed regulation to protect young workers from being injured or killed in agricultural jobs. Two weeks later, a group of organizations dedicated…
June 6, 2012
by Mark Catlin
Tony Mazzocchi was a visionary who was in the forefront of the labor movement's major struggles for social justice in the postwar period. Those hard fought struggles and victories, from the civil rights movement and the struggles against nuclear proliferation and the Vietnam War,…
June 1, 2012
by Laredo, golden retriever dog
A weird story appeared on my Facebook page today. It was written by somebody named "AP." The headline read: "Alpha introduces mine search-rescue dog in Va." I like working dogs just as much as the next canine, so I read the article. Says that "Ginny" is a two-…
May 31, 2012
The Obama Administration's quest to appease business interests' claims about burdensome and outdated regulations awoke a giant in the form of the civil rights, public health and workers' safety communities. From the Southern Poverty Law Center and the National Council of LaRaza, to the American…
May 25, 2012
When Debbie "Muvmuv" Brewer was diagnosed in 2006 with pleural mesothelioma, it was a tough year. She'd also lost her beloved Dad, Phillip Northmore, who succumbed to his own asbestos-related disease. After meeting Muvmuv a few weeks ago at the 8th Annual International Asbestos Awareness…
May 24, 2012
Six months after Maureen Revetta's husband, Nick, 32, was killed by an explosion at the U.S. Steel plant in Clairton, PA, she was still waiting to hear from the Labor Department’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). The young widow, now a single parent with a two children under…
May 18, 2012
Members of and organizations affiliated with the National Council of La Raza (NCLR) received an Action Alert today urging them to tell USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack to withdraw his agency's proposed rule on poultry slaughter inspection (77 Fed Reg 4408.) As written here previously and by the Center…
May 15, 2012
After 35 years of service, Mr. Sherman Lynn Holmes, 55, retired from the Pine River School District. Before long though, he gave up the life of a retiree to work as a woodsman. It was his true calling and lifelong passion. He knew the woods and trees of northern Michigan like the back of his hand…
May 11, 2012
[Updated 12/28/2014: see below]
Those were the first words out of the mouth of the Southwest Airlines' official when describing the incident on January 27, 2012 at Dulles International Airport that claimed the life of 25 year-old employee Jared Patrick Dodson. The five-year employee was driving a…
May 4, 2012
This time last week, many of us in the public health and workers' rights community were still in shock by the Obama Administration's decision to withdraw its proposed regulation to protect children who work on farms. Others weren't really surprised and simply chalked it up to the Administration…
May 1, 2012
Earlier this month, the U.S. Government Accountability Office issued a report on the snail's pace of the OSHA process of issuing new rules to protect workers from health and safety hazards on-the-job. One telling table in the document showed the agency issued about 20 new major regulations in each…
April 26, 2012
Gabriel Thompson writes today in The Nation about a summer job he had a few years back, working on the assembly line at a Pilgrim's Pride poultry plant in Alabama. The chickens flew by on hooks at 90 birds-per-minute as he sliced and cut the meat non-stop. It didn't take long for him to meet co-…
April 24, 2012
Just as Republican lawmakers have been hyping the virtues of purchasing private health insurance----versus the evils of "Obamacare"----my husband Jim and I needed to do just that. I had been writing a check for $659 each month to maintain health insurance coverage under my former employer's plan,…
April 19, 2012
Beau Griffing remembers how proud his mom Kristine, 52, was of the work she did at the Eaton Corporation's Kearney, Nebraska facility. He told a local reporter how she loved taking him and his siblings to the plant to show them where she worked.
"She provided so much for us," Beau Griffing said. "…
April 17, 2012
Mr. Mitt Romney spoke this weekend at the National Rifle Association's (NRA) annual convention and kicked off his remarks applauding the gun-lovers group's defense of the 2nd amendment to the Constitution. "This fine organization is sometimes called a single-issue group," Romney said. "That's…
April 12, 2012
More than 425 days----that's 14 months----have passed since the Labor Department's Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) sent to the White House's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) a draft proposed regulation designed to protect workers who are exposed to respirable…
April 9, 2012
The US Chamber of Commerce had a quaint little game on its website last month, complete with a YouTube video with fake sportscasters. The PR campaign called "Regulatory Madness" keyed off the annual NCAA's basketball tournament we know as March Madness. The cutesy idea was for business people to…
April 5, 2012
"When the world came to an end" is how Joshua Williams described being inside the Upper Big Branch coal mine at 3:02 pm on April 5, 2010. He knew several crews of coal miners were much deeper inside the dark tunnels than he. An ominous feeling. Coal dust explosions are powerful and deadly.…
April 3, 2012
[Update below, June 2013]
Phillip Northmore worked for the UK's Ministry of Defense in Plymouth, England from 1963 to 1966. His job as a lagger meant he spent his day repairing and applying asbestos insulation around pipes and ductwork in the bowels of buildings. His wife recalled him coming home…
March 28, 2012
[Update below (7/14/14)]
In 1991, Dan Quayle was US Vice President, General Norman Schwarzkopf led the 100-hour assault known as Operation Desert Storm, and Phil Collins had the record of the year. It was the last (and only) time that the US Congress amended the Occupational Safety and Health Act (…
March 26, 2012
In October 2009, the Labor Department's Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) made national headlines when it proposed a record-setting $87 million penalty against BP Products North America Inc. for the company' failure to correct serious safety hazards at its Texas City, Texas…
March 23, 2012
Earlier this week, Lizzie Grossman reported here at The Pump Handle on revisions to OSHA's Hazard Communication standard which align the agency's 30 year old rule with a globally harmonized system for classifying and labeling chemical hazards. In "Moving from Right-to-Know to Right-to-Understand…
March 19, 2012
The $109 billion transportation bill passed last week in the Senate has a title that doesn't even mention roads or highways. It's called the ''Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act'' (MAP-21) The 74 Senators who voted in favor of the bill (S. 1813), including 22 Republicans,…
March 14, 2012
To mark Sunshine Week, the annual initiative to promote freedom of information and government openness, I'm examining OSHA's performance in disclosing information about worker fatality cases. My interest in this particular transparency issue stems back to the first year of the Obama Administration…