Liz Borkowski
lborkowski
Posts by this author
May 15, 2010
Elizabeth Weise's USA Today article about potential health effects of the Gulf oil disaster and its cleanup notes that we don't have a whole lot of research to draw on about this kind of exposure. Residents and cleanup workers alike will be exposed both to the oil itself and to cleanup agents,…
December 21, 2009
This post was originally published on our Wordpress site
In a historic achievement, 60 Senators have agreed to a healthcare bill that will dramatically expand health insurance coverage and curb some of the insurance industry’s worst practices. Getting agreement between the Senate and the House,…
August 17, 2009
This post was originally published on our old Wordpress site.
Both the Washington Post and the New York Times report that the Obama administration is signaling a new willingness to jettison the public plan element of healthcare reform legislation. Jonathan Cohn at The Treatment questions whether…
May 13, 2009
Labor Secretary Hilda Solis signed off on her first semi-annual agenda of regulations, which was published in the Federal Register on Monday, May 11. She writes:
"This document sets forth the Department's semiannual agenda of regulations that have been selected for review or development during…
December 11, 2007
Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao published her semi-annual regulatory agenda yesterday in the Federal Register. Earlier this month, I'd made predictions about the agenda, but after perusing the document, I'm glad I didn't put any money down on my guesses. Rather than updating the status of safety…
November 30, 2007
It's that time of year---time for the Secretary of Labor to issue her semi-annual regulatory agenda.  Look for its publication in the Federal Register around the second week of December.
I'll be curious to see OSHA's timetable for action on diacetyl, the butter-flavoring agent …
November 26, 2006
by revere
[Since my colleague and new blog sibling Dave Ozonoff posted here some advice on NIH grant writing in response to a post of mine over at Effect Measure, I thought I'd cross-post a follow-up I did on NIH funding a few days later. BTW, Dave, I'll have to give you some lessons in snarkiness…
November 21, 2006
by Liz BorkowskiÂ
After posting about the global water and sanitation crisis, I learned via Gristmill that rap star and Def Jams president Jay-Z has aligned himself with this important cause. On a recent world tour, the star visited Angola and South Africa and witnessed firsthand what life is like…
November 20, 2006
by Dick Clapp
Atul Gawande is well-known around Boston because of his skills as a surgeon, but also for his books and articles in the New Yorker, and his interviews with local media. He was a recipient of one of this yearâs MacArthur grants, in recognition of his work. I got one of his books, "…
November 18, 2006
by Liz BorkowskiÂ
Nearly half of Mumbaiâs 18 million residents live in unofficial settlements called zopadpatti. In one of these areas, Dharavi, estimates suggest there is one toilet for every 1,4440 people, tap water flows for only two hours each day, and approximately 15 families share each…
November 16, 2006
by David OzonoffÂ
My new Pump Handle blog colleague, "Revere", has posted on NIH's proposal to limit the Research Plan section of Research Project Grant applications to 15 pages, down from the current 25. He/she/they (Revere's blog, Effect Measure, is ambiguous as to how many Reveres there are)…
November 16, 2006
The story of the pump handle is familiar to any first-semester public health student: During the London cholera epidemic of 1854, John Snow examined maps of cholera cases and traced the disease to water from a local pump. At the time, the prevailing theory held that cholera spread through the air,…