Liz Borkowski
lborkowski
Posts by this author
January 6, 2011
Liz and Celeste are on vacation, so we're re-posting some content from our old site.
By Celeste Monforton, originally posted 11/4/09
I admit it: I have a soft spot for hockey players. It probably stems from my Michigan upbringing, including my family's winter-time ritual of making an outdoor…
January 5, 2011
Liz and Celeste are on vacation, so we're re-posting some content from our old site.
By Celeste Monforton, originally posted 12/16/09
In April-May 2008, there were a spate of fatalities involving workers doing installations or maintenance on cell phone towers. I blogged about seven of these…
January 4, 2011
Liz 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…
January 3, 2011
Liz 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…
December 31, 2010
Liz 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…
December 30, 2010
Liz 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…
December 29, 2010
Liz 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…
December 28, 2010
Liz 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…
December 27, 2010
Liz 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…
December 24, 2010
A 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…
December 23, 2010
United 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…
December 22, 2010
Earlier 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…
December 17, 2010
Less 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…
December 17, 2010
by 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…
December 15, 2010
The 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…
December 14, 2010
Yesterday 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…
December 10, 2010
It's been an interesting week of discussing urban issues, and I want to thank Sharon Astyk of Casaubon's Book and all of our commenters for making it so fun. I learned some interesting things from the comments - especially that vertical agriculture probably doesn't make sense, even if it sounds…
December 9, 2010
Yesterday I mentioned sewer systems as an indispensable part of urban infrastructure, and today I want to focus on the more visible issue of transportation. The efficiency with which people and goods move into and within cities has a huge impact on both energy use and air quality. And the…
December 8, 2010
In Monday's post I mentioned how much I loved London when I visited - but London wasn't always such an appealing place. During the Industrial Revolution, it was filthy and polluted. The stench was appalling, and an episode of particularly foul smells from the Thames River in 1858 was known as the "…
December 7, 2010
As I mentioned yesterday, Sharon Astyk of Casaubon's Book and I are spending this week focusing on urbanization issues. Sharon is a farmer and has been writing for a long time about sustainable food production, particularly as it relates to climate change and a dwindling supply of fossil fuels. In…
December 6, 2010
The Pump Handle and Casaubon's Book are writing posts this week about the global trend of urbanization. More than half of the world's population now lives in cities, and this shift has implications for the health of the planet.
I grew up in suburban Delaware, and my first experience with urban…
December 3, 2010
A few of the recent pieces I've liked:
Robin Fields at ProPublica: In Dialysis, Life-Saving Care at Great Risk and Cost
Timothy Noah at Slate: McSurance on Trial: A Senate committee puts the spotlight on the crap health insurance given fast-food workers
EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson in the WSJ:…
December 2, 2010
Mary Kay Magistad of PRI's The World surveys the cost of China's huge appetite for coal and reports that it's harmful to workers as well as air quality. She interviews 37-year-old coal miner Zhong Guangwei, who developed a severe case of pneumoconiosis, or black lung disease, after just 10 months…
December 1, 2010
Today, is World AIDS Day, and while the pandemic continues to devastate millions of lives, we can also honor some achievements. CDC reports that when PEPFAR (the US President's Plan for AIDS Relief) started in 2003, fewer than 50,000 people in sub-Saharan Africa were getting antiretroviral drugs;…
November 29, 2010
Given that Haiti is suffering from the devastation of a major earthquake and a cholera epidemic, it's not surprising that voters yesterday encountered disorganized polling places where many were told their names weren't on the rolls. But there were also reports of violence and intimidation, polling…
November 24, 2010
The most prominent occupational health news this week is the tragic deaths of 29 workers from New Zealand's Pike River coal mine. Celeste has already written about this, so I'll just add my encourgement to visit the New Zealand Herald's photos and short profiles of the 29 miners:
Conrad Adams,…
November 19, 2010
The UN Food and Agriculture Organization has released a new Food Outlook, and the news isn't great.
Global wheat and rice production have both suffered setbacks this year as Russia has suffered from drought and Pakistan from floods. Poor cassava harvests in Asia are also a concern, given that…
November 18, 2010
Last week at the American Public Health Association's annual meeting in Denver, APHA's Occupational Health and Safety section held its awards luncheon - always one of the highlights of the meeting thanks to its combination of stellar awardees and creative musical skit. This year's award winners won…
November 17, 2010
by 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…
November 16, 2010
When 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…