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August 7, 2008
Kathy G directs our attention to Thomas Frankâs Wall Street Journal column (sub only), which uses the AgriProcessors meatpacking plant in Postville, Iowa to illustrate Labor Secretary Elaine Chaoâs record. In May this plant, which happens to be the countryâs largest kosher meatpacking facility, was…
August 7, 2008
I usually don't stray into strictly political issues, but today's action by the Mayor of Detroit has me fuming. I've been avoiding blogging on this topic, but Kwame Kilpatrick always has a new criminal exploit fueled by his overwhelming arrogance. His latest idiocy will land him in jail for the…
August 7, 2008
by Nathan Fetty
An editorial in today's New York Times is the latest media piece about the abysmal failures surrounding last summer's Crandall Canyon mine disaster in Utah. Now that investigators have revealed how the company knew of the mine's dangers, the Times says, a criminal probe is in…
August 7, 2008
In an earlier post, I wrote about the epistemology (or perhaps ontology---we never really did settle it) of disease. Defining what is disease is sometimes obvious, sometimes not. If you have HIV, you have HIV---a test is positive or negative, treatments are known. If you have high blood pressure…
August 6, 2008
Orac had a nice takedown of an idiotic piece on Medscape about the Gardasil vaccine. As he reported, the link to the bad article is now dead, perhaps as a result of blograge. Now, on the front page of Medscape is a poll---a poll regarding physician prescribing habits given the "news" about…
August 6, 2008
A new GAO report and testimony at a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing made it clear just how far the military still has to go in preventing and responding to sexual assault. The American News Project shows wrenching testimony from Ingrid Torres, a Red Cross worker raped by a…
August 5, 2008
Welcome to Tangled Bank #111! Today's entries are presented without comment, but with poetry, a truly remarkable natural, albeit human, phenomenon, or to quote Love and Rockets:
You can't go against natureBecause when you doGo against natureIt's part of nature too.
In the umbra, the tunnel,…
August 5, 2008
Tom Bethell of The Mountain Eagle urges us (and policymakers) to read the independent investigation of MSHA and the Crandall Canyon disaster, by two former MSHA District Managers, to understand how the Secretary of Labor's demand for 'compliance assistance' programs set the groundwork for the…
August 5, 2008
by revere, cross-posted at Effect Measure
The Health Care Renewal blog has made a business of chronicling the undreside of the American health care system: fraud, conflicts of interest by respected academics, bureaucratic incompetence and malfeasance. I do basic research and don't get involved in…
August 4, 2008
On July 28, five representatives of the crane industry met with OMB OIRA, including several who were members of the OSHA Neg/Reg committee, to press OMB to complete its review of the agency's proposed rule on cranes and derricks. The existing OSHA rule dates back to 1971. Efforts to update…
August 4, 2008
Tom Barton, the editorial page editor of the Savannah Morning News, blasts the behavior and attitude of the Imperial Sugar CEO John Sheptor and other senior executives in the wake of last week's Senate hearing and the July 25 announcement by OSHA of a $8.8 million penalty against the firm. …
August 3, 2008
The discussion we've had since Friday regarding the Bush administration's latest foray into theocracy brought up some interesting points. We discussed implications of the draft regulations including likely limitations on access to safe and effective birth control. But there is another issue here…
August 2, 2008
The Tangled Bank, the carnival for folks who love their science blogging, is coming here to denialism blog August 6th. We are the emergency fill-in hosts but promise to do a bang-up job. Send in those entries (to PZ, click the badge above).
August 1, 2008
Kane at Osha Underground has posted an insightful, deservedly hostile response to OSHA Administrator Ed Foulke's testimony at Tuesday's Senate hearing on combustible dust explosions.
In response to Foulke's insistence that "The fatalities and injuries at the Port Wentworth sugar refinery probably…
August 1, 2008
I'm so angry I can barely type coherently. I have very strong feelings about abortion, but I believe it is possible to respectfully disagree about the ethical issues involved. I have an obstetrics colleague who does not perform abortions, but refers patients needing this service to others. That'…
August 1, 2008
Bloggers keep us up to date on whatâs happening in Congress:
Lisa Stiffler at Dateline Earth reports that both houses have now passed legislation reducing the amount of lead and phthalates allowed in childrenâs products and increasing the regulatory strength of the Consumer Product Safety…
August 1, 2008
Celeste was the first to draw attention to the Department of Labor's proposed risk-assessment rule, whose title appeared suddenly on the Office of Management and Budget website without having been published first in DOL's regulatory agenda, and she's continued to track the news about it and…
July 31, 2008
In a commentary on this morningâs Marketplace, the Cato Instituteâs Will Wilkinson critiqued T. Boone Pickensâ new energy plan â and in doing so, painted a misleading picture of the governmentâs role our energy usage.
Pickens wants wind energy to replace natural gas in electricity generation, and…
July 31, 2008
My recent post on tobacco poisoning focused on chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, the cause of about one-third of smoking related deaths. Let's move on to cardiovascular disease (CVD), which accounts for another third.
When we talk about CVD, what are we taking about? The pathophysiology is…
July 31, 2008
Congressman George Miller (D-CA) along with 11 co-sponsors introduced a bill yesterday (H.R. 6660) to prohibit Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao from issuing her proposed rule mandating new requirements for health risk assessments prepared by MSHA and OSHA. The Congressman's statement accompanying…
July 31, 2008
This is one of those topics I've always sort of avoided, and I'm still avoiding it for now. But that doesn't mean you have to remain silent. Here's the reader comment/question:
This is off-topic, but I wanted some doctorly input to a discussion that I am having over at another blog.
This lady is…
July 31, 2008
It's up over at Martin's place. His blog came out of nowhere (don't they all) a few months back, and he's hit the ground running.
Just, please, when you get to my section, try not to use your imagination too well. Trust me.
July 30, 2008
Every once in a while I like to do a piece on how real science works. The New England Journal of Medicine was kind enough to serve up a nice example for us this week.
Real science is hard. It's time-consuming, expensive, and leads down many blind alleys. That's one of the reasons pseudoscience is…
July 30, 2008
One of my favorite pet websites is RationalWiki, which is slowly transforming into it's 3.0 iteration. It originated as a parody/rebuttal site to the execrable Conservapedia (and no, Conservapedia is not a parody, just an example of Poe's Law at work). Eventually, it expanded to developing…
July 30, 2008
In the Wausau Daily Herald, Gannett Wisconsin Media reports that an explosion at the Packaging Corp of America in Bradley, Wisconsin killed three workers: Randy Hoegger, 55, and Steve Voermans, 52, both of Tomahawk, and Donald Snyder, 46, of Merrill.
According to a company human resources manager,…
July 30, 2008
by revere, cross-posted at Effect Measure
The FDA is saying they still aren't sure how over 1200 Salmonella stpaul cases resulted from food chain contamination but they are saying its from jalapeno peppers grown in Mexico. This from a press release July 25:
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is…
July 29, 2008
Oh. My. F-ing. God. All the news that's fit to print???
I know some of my readers don't think much of the New York Times (yes, PP, I'm talking to you), but despite some of my reservations, it's still the Paper of Record. That's why I was, er, um, was nauseated was flabbergasted threw up in…
July 29, 2008
Thanks to Carol Leonnig at the Washington Post and her confidential sources, we can see the true measure of Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao's disrespect for U.S. workers, embodied in her proposed rule on risk assessement. I blogged first about this "secret rule" on July 8, with follow-ups (here…
July 29, 2008
The Washington Post's Juliet Eilperin reports that a senior EPA official has told managers that they shouldn't answer questions from reporters, congressional investigators, or the agency's inspector general - instead, they should direct them to a press officer. (The group Public Employees for…
July 29, 2008
I frequently get questions by email or by comment. If it's simple, I might fire off an answer. If it's about a personal medical problem, I either don't answer, or send a standard disclaimer to seek medical care. If it's a really interesting question, I blog. Today, I blog.
The question regarded…