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February 8, 2008
Bloggers react to Bush's proposed budget: Science Progress has the totals for science-based agencies Heather Taylor at Switchboard thinks it's lame Gerald Epstein at SEA probes a mystery $2 billion for Homeland Security R&D Climate Progress bemoans its anti-efficiency stance  Amie Newman…
February 7, 2008
Pulitzer-winning Seattle P-I reporter Andrew Schneider is already known to many in the public health world: He broke the Libby, Montana story,  and tracked the asbestos problem across the country. With fellow P-I reporter Robert McClure, he revealed the environmental devastation from mining on…
February 7, 2008
Tragopogon pratensis Edvard Koinberg Herbarium Amoris Through March 16, the House of Sweden in Washington, DC, is hosting a collection of luminous botanical photographs by Edvard Koinberg. The exhibition, "Herbarium Amoris," is a tribute to Swedish-born systematist Carl Linnaeus, whose innovative…
February 7, 2008
Weâve written before about how the Consumer Product Safety Commission lacks both the authority and the will to come down hard on companies that keep their unsafe products on the market. Now, Public Citizen has tallied up the time that elapsed between the dates when the CPSC learned of several…
February 6, 2008
This month's Environmental Health Perspectives features an informative but disturbing article by Andrea Hricko entitled  "Global Trade Comes Home".  It describes the adverse impact on communities of the "goods movement" system, where imports to the U.S.---electronics, food, toys, furniture---…
February 6, 2008
In 2003, FRONTLINE, The New York Times, and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation teamed up to investigate nine deaths and thousands of injuries at facilities owned by McWane, Inc., a major iron pipe foundry company â and âa portrait emerged of McWane as the most dangerous company in an inherently…
February 5, 2008
The push for a presidential candidate science debate is stronger than ever: Yesterday, the National Academies joined other prestigious organizations to co-sponsor the effort. "This would provide a nonpartisan setting to educate voters on the candidates' positions on key science, technology, and…
February 5, 2008
A group of advocates for miners and their families sent a rulemaking petition to MSHA on February 1, asking the agency to improve its regulations governing the training that mine workers receive about their statutory rights.  The Petition for Rulemaking was submitted by the West Virginia Mine…
February 4, 2008
Nearly four decades after the passage of the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970, it is difficult to find anyone who will argue that it has delivered on its promise to provide safe and healthful working conditions. In 2005 and 2006 I traveled across the country and met with people…
February 4, 2008
Two high-tech communication firms, Venture Design Services, Inc and Helicomm, Inc., teamed up to create a wireless tracking system for underground miners, and it is the first product of its kind to be approved by MSHA since the Sago, WV disaster.  That 2006 event, which claimed the lives of 12…
February 4, 2008
This afternoon at 2:30pm Eastern time, David Michaels will be doing a Public Health Reports webcast on protecting workers from beryllium. No registration or log-in password is necessary to participate; the link for the webcast will be posted at 2 PM on the Public Health Reports website. David will…
February 1, 2008
In advance of Super-Duper Tuesday voting, bloggers have some thoughts about the Republican presidential hopefuls: Tula Connell at AFL-CIO Weblog reports that the investment firm founded by Mitt Romney is supporting a system that keeps Florida tomato workers impoverished. Michael Millenson at…
February 1, 2008
When the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) introduced its Program Assessment Rating Tool (PART) in 2003, it had what sounded like a worthwhile goal: get federal agencies to evaluate how well they do their jobs, in order to assure that taxpayer money is used efficiently. Like so much…
January 31, 2008
Welcome, Gentle Reader, to my new series of Internet tubes. You'll notice that I haven't completely unpacked - there's no pretty banner at the top, the blogroll is woefully incomplete (it's probably even missing your blog!), and my profile page is not nearly as verbose as it could be. It'll get…
January 31, 2008
Back in 1994, 240 coal miners in Hirwaun, Wales bought the Tower Colliery where they were employed.  The UK government was de-nationalizing the coal mines and the pit was scheduled to close.  The miners took charge of their own livelihood, used their severence-layoff pay and borrowed money, to…
January 31, 2008
On Monday February 4th, Iâll be doing the Public Health Reportsâ monthly webcast, discussing the recent article Celeste Monforton and I wrote entitled Berylliumâs âPublic Relations Problemâ: Protecting Workers When There is No Safe Exposure Level. Hereâs some background: In a 1947 report, entitled…
January 30, 2008
Americans for Balanced Energy Choices (ABEC), a coal industry âastroturfâ organization, is sponsoring the Republican presidential debate tonight and Democratic debate tomorrow night, both in California and hosted by CNN. Think Progress has noticed that ABEC has sponsored three previous debates on…
January 30, 2008
Catch Devra Davis on BookTV this weekend, talking about her terrific book The Secret History of the War on Cancer. More details, including broadcast times, are here.
January 30, 2008
On January 20th, Britainâs Sunday Times newspaper published the results of six months' worth of interviews with employees from the building site of Beijingâs Olympic stadium: CHINA has systematically covered up the accidental deaths of at least 10 workers, and perhaps many more, in a rush to…
January 29, 2008
In San Francisco, large grocery stores are no longer allowed to give out the disposable, non-biodegradable plastic bags that have formed a giant patch of plastic (twice the size of Texas) in the Pacific Ocean and caused a host of other problems. The Whole Foods supermarket chain will halt plastic-…
January 29, 2008
In his last state of the union address, President Bush glossed over the seriousness of some of the most pressing problems facing our country, and suggested they could be solved with something thatâs been in short supply during his tenure. âGlobal climate changeâ got one brief mention, as…
January 28, 2008
Earlier this month, I wrote in Restoring FOIA about recently passed amendments to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) which were signed into law by President Bush on Dec. 31, 2007.  Supporters of the OPEN Government Act, including the Society for Environmental Journalists (SEJ), are hoping…
January 27, 2008
UPDATED BELOW Annys Shin of the Washington Post has reported that Dr. Gail Charnley, a well-known corporate product defense expert, is the White Houseâs leading candidate for the chairmanship of the Consumer Product Safety Commission. Weâve written extensively here about this beleaguered agency.…
January 26, 2008
The Chemical Safety Board (CSB) released new information concerning the massive explosion on December 19 at the T2 Laboratories plant in Jacksonville, Florida.  The disaster killed four men out of the nine total who were working at the time.  In their announcement, the CSB investigators…
January 25, 2008
The science blogosphere has been particularly active this past week. The Second Annual Science Blogging Conference brought bloggers together in North Carolina, where they discussed open science, blogger ethics, gender and race in science, science communication, and more. Conference organizer…
January 24, 2008
Yesterday, the American Association for the Advancement of Science â the worldâs largest general scientific society â announced its co-sponsorship of the Science Debate 2008 campaign (which we at The Pump Handle support, and blogged about here). In light of recent economic events, the press release…
January 24, 2008
A group of state legislators in West Virginia introduced a bill to strengthen the State's laws to protect mine workers who raise concerns about unsafe working conditions.  The lead sponsor is Delegate Bill Hamilton (R) who represents the region where the now-abandoned Sago mine is located.* …
January 23, 2008
At the second annual Arctic Frontiers conference in Tromsø, Norway, 500 experts are discussing the outlook for oil and gas production in the rapidly warming Arctic. As is all too common these days, theyâll do so without the benefit of all the information that scientists worked hard to compile…
January 23, 2008
As the fifth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq approaches, itâs clear that the U.S. is still having trouble ensuring that injured veterans get what they need â whether thatâs care for a brain injury, mental health services, or sufficient recovery time. Hereâs the news from the past week: An Army…
January 22, 2008
By Les Leopold  If you need a quick snooze, read a US Government Accountability Office report with its carefully parsed prose. But lost in the holiday rush was a December GAO report that could keep you awake as it bashes the Bush administrationâs effort to water down the community Right to Know…