Liz Borkowski
lborkowski
Posts by this author
March 16, 2012
by Kim Krisberg
"CQ, CQ Celebrating National Public Health Week!" "CQ, CQ Celebrating National Public Health Week!"
If you're an aficionado of amateur radio -- or ham radio as it's also known -- this is the call you might hear coming out of Oklahoma City on April 6. In layman's terms, it means "…
March 15, 2012
Yesterday, the Senate passed a two-year transportation bill by a vote of 74 to 22, putting us close to getting a reasonably good piece of legislation signed by March 31, when the current stopgap extension will expire. Last month, the House Natural Resources Committee approved a terrible bill that…
March 13, 2012
National Sleep Awareness Week might have been last week, but many of us are feeling the importance of shuteye this week, as we struggle to drag ourselves out of bed at what feels like an inappropriate hour. While Daylight Saving Time may get the blame for sleepiness this week, though, there are…
March 9, 2012
by Elizabeth Grossman
Nurses face many hazards on the job, and one that clearly demands more detailed analysis than it's received to date is the effect of occupational chemical exposures on nurses' reproductive health. A recent study by researchers at the National Institute of Occupational Safety…
March 8, 2012
In the latest issue of EHS Today, Terence Milford lays out the case to employers for investing in ergonomics:
In 2002, a survey conducted by the U.S. Department of Labor reported that employees suffering from repetitive stress injuries incurred in the workplace took a median of 23 days off work,…
March 6, 2012
Back in December, the Department of Labor's Wage & Hour Division published a proposed rule that would extend minimum-wage and overtime pay protections to the home care workers who assist elderly and disabled patients with their daily needs. The Fair Labor Standards Act requires that nonexempt…
March 2, 2012
The World Health Organization has confirmed that India has gone a whole year without having a new case of polio -- a major milestone in a country that was once plagued by the crippling disease. BBC's Fergus Walsh explains that the country won't formally be regarded as polio-free until it's gone…
February 28, 2012
by Kim Krisberg
Walking around a public health laboratory is seriously cool.
Giant humming machines, rows of test tubes and small, round dishes containing specimens with hard-to-pronounce names, biohazard warnings and emergency shower stations, an egg incubator and liquid nitrogen generator,…
February 27, 2012
There's a growing body of research linking childhood trauma (abuse, neglect, family dysfunction, etc.) to impaired brain development and functioning. Maia Szalavitz at TIME's Healthland blog describes the findings of new study by Harvard researchers (published in the Proceedings of the National…
February 22, 2012
Earlier today, US Attorney Booth Goodwin charged Upper Big Branch mine superintendent Gary May with "conspiring to impede the Mine Safety and Health Administration's enforcement efforts" at that mine. Massey Energy's Upper Big Branch mine in Raleigh County, West Virginia was the site of numerous…
February 21, 2012
By Kim Krisberg
Friday wasn't a great day for public health.
That day, Congress voted to raid the Affordable Care Act's Prevention and Public Health Fund to the tune of $5 billion. The move comes as part of a deal to delay scheduled cuts to Medicare physician payment rates and was part of a…
February 20, 2012
by Kim Krisberg
Amanda DeSimpelare was always interested in science, but she was wary of what a career in the field would be like. She pictured herself being tucked away in a laboratory all day. It wasn't too appealing.
Then, in the summer of 2010, she discovered public health.
"When I pictured…
February 16, 2012
by Elizabeth Grossman
What's being called the first-ever such criminal conviction, an Italian court has returned a guilty verdict against owners of Eternit, the Switzerland-based building materials company. Two weeks ago, W.R. Grace announced its bankruptcy case settlement for the residents of…
February 15, 2012
Everyone should read the personal story by Kevin Zelnio, a marine biologist and blogger at EvoEcoLab, about his son's recent medical emergency. Having a six-year-old child whose flulike symptoms turn into a struggle to breathe must be scary enough -- but this family's troubles are compounded by not…
February 13, 2012
Most readers are probably aware that tomorrow, 2/14, is Valentine's Day, but do you know what's significant about 2/13? It's not a cue to buy chocolates -- it's a reminder that federal law only requires restaurants to pay their workers an hourly wage of $2.13. That minimum hasn't been raised since…
February 10, 2012
The House of Representatives Natural Resources Committee has approved what Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood calls "the worst transportation bill I've ever seen during 35 years of public service." LaHood spent 14 years in Congress, serving as a Republican representative from Illinois, and told…
February 9, 2012
by Elizabeth Grossman
The news of increased hiring in the January jobs report has been greeted as a sign that the US might finally be emerging from the Great Recession. But a look at the kind of hiring that's been on the rise over the past few years raises important questions about the changing…
February 7, 2012
I wrote last month about the role of chronic diseases in healthcare-cost growth, so I was excited to see a new report from the Institute of Medicine called Living Well with Chronic Illness: A Call for Public Health Action.
When I think of chronic illness, diabetes and heart disease are what leap…
February 3, 2012
A few of the recent pieces I've liked:
Ruth Marcus in the Washington Post: Why the poor should concern Romney
Scott Carlson in The Chronicle of Higher Education: America's Health Threat: Poor Urban Design
Maia Szalavitz at Healthland: The Wet House: Homeless People with Alcoholism Drink Less When…
February 1, 2012
Celeste wrote last week about the letter from scientists and public health experts urging President Obama to direct the Office of Management and Budget to finish reviewing the Department of Labor's proposed health standard on crystalline silica. Respirable crystalline silica has been known for…
January 31, 2012
by Kim Krisberg
Joy Jay has the sweetest Southern accent you'll ever hear. It's the kind of accent that makes her news about the state of mental health services in South Carolina harder to hear than usual.
"Mental health has taken some of the biggest (funding) cuts of any agency in the state,"…
January 27, 2012
During his State of the Union address, President Obama spent more time talking about education than about healthcare, which he mentioned only passing. The two are connected, though, as a response from Dean Dad at Confessions of a Community College Dean reminds us:
In reference to yesterday's post…
January 24, 2012
Last week, the Congressional Budget Office released some disappointing news: several demonstration projects aiming to contain growth in healthcare spending are not showing cost savings. Specifically, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services have been focusing on programs involving either…
January 19, 2012
by Kim Krisberg
It only takes a few minutes of talking with Scott Becker to realize just how passionate he is about public health. In fact, his enthusiasm is contagious. Maybe that's why he isn't mincing his words.
"What keeps me up at night is how we are going to maintain the core and critical…
January 18, 2012
Aging US water infrastructure has meant more leaks, flooded basements, and massive sinkholes in cities across the US. Fixing the water and sewer systems in need of repair will take billions of dollars, and it's hard to find that kind of money in the budget these days.
Saqib Rahim reports for…
January 16, 2012
For Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, Candace Rowell at Mind the Science Gap reminds us that environmental injustice is a pressing civil rights issue, writing, "minority groups in the United States bear an unequal distribution of environmental risks and outcomes." (Mind the Science Gap will feature…
January 13, 2012
The US Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board has warned about the dangers of combustible dust before, and its new report on a series of disasters at the Hoeganaes facility in Gallatin, Tennessee once again highlights how deadly this hazard can be. In three separate incidents at the…
January 12, 2012
Two years ago, a 7.0 earthquake struck Haiti, killing 300,000 Haitians and leaving 1.5 million homeless. Nine months later, a cholera epidemic began -- its first victim a 28-year-old man who bathed in and drank from a river that was likely contaminated by raw sewage from an encampment of UN…
January 10, 2012
At her Superbug blog, Maryn McKenna reports on a disturbing, but not unexpected development: over the past three months, 12 cases of tuberculosis at a single Mumbai hospital have been found to be resistant to all the drugs used to treat the disease.
This is not the first time totally drug-…
January 9, 2012
By Susan Wood, cross-posted from RH Reality Check
On Friday, January 6th, 2012, several public health experts addressed the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology on the issue of Plan B One-Step® and the Obama administration's refusal to let the Food and Drug Administration lift…