sb admin
Posts by this author
July 11, 2007
By Liz BorkowskiÂ
An article in the latest issue of OMB Watchâs Watcher newsletter reports on U.S. Chamber of Commerce efforts to get EPA to make changes to its chemical databases. The short story is that the Chamber asked the EPA to correct what it claimed was âinconsistent and erroneousâ…
July 11, 2007
Federal officials have arrested three men in Las Vegas, saying they âenslaved more than 20 members of a Chinese acrobatic team, feeding them little, paying them next to nothing to perform, and confiscating their passports and visas,â the Associated Press reports.
In the Seattle Weekly, Sarah…
July 10, 2007
Dale Jones, 51 and Michael Wilt, 38 reported to work at the Caledonia Pit, a surface coal mine near Barton, Maryland at 5:30 am on Tuesday, April 17, 2007. In the 275 feet-deep pit, Jones operated the excavator while Wilt ran the dozer. By about 10:00 am that morning, something had gone…
July 10, 2007
If you have a job, do you know who your employer is? The answer isnât always straightforward, César Cuauhtémoc GarcÃa Hernández points out in a recent Boston College Third World Law Journal article, and the implications can be profound.
In âFeeble, Circular, and Unpredictable: OSHAâs Failure to…
July 9, 2007
A couple of weeks ago, EPA proposed a new National Ambient Air Quality Standard for ozone (0.07 â 0.075 ppb) that was lower than the current limit (0.08 ppb) but not as protective as the limit many experts suggested (0.06). The agency also announced that it would be taking comments on alternative…
July 9, 2007
Remember back in May, when public health advocates sounded the alarm about the fact that EPAâs short list of nominees for its Science Advisory Board asbestos panel included scientists associated with product defense firms? As David Michaels explained, these firms are hired by corporations and trade…
July 9, 2007
This is from a letter to the editor that was published in The Tennessean about a month ago. In the "Issues" section on Sunday, they had a page devoted to this, and this time they actually published a long (more than 250 word) letter that I'd written. I had seen, a week previously, that they were…
July 6, 2007
Cong. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) held a hearing on June 25 on the federal government's response to the hazardous air contaminants that polluted lower Manhattan after the 9/11 attacks. The featured witness was former EPA administrator Christine Todd Whitman, who was in the hot seat for her claims…
July 6, 2007
In honor of the 4th of July, Joseph Romm at Gristmill rounds up news of places that have cancelled fireworks displays due to drought, and Janet Stemwedel at Adventures in Ethics and Science explains the chemistry behind firework colors.
As always, the U.S. Independence Day is an occasion for…
July 6, 2007
Before I say this, let me preface my remarks with the statement that I understand the reasoning of the Time Allocation Committtee (TAC), and it's not an insane decision. It's as I predicted; they're worried that the observations are too hard because the targets are faint. My collaborator and I…
July 5, 2007
Enter your project's number, and we'll show you the pictures we took:
July 5, 2007
Four Nigerian states are suing British American Tobacco and Philip Morris to recover costs of treating smoking-related diseases. The plaintiffs charge that the companies aimed to recruit more smokers by targeting minors, using sponsorship of concerts and sporting events and free cigarette giveaways…
July 4, 2007
After a contractor was rescued from a collapsed construction trench in Desert Hot Springs, California, Eric Solvig of The Desert Sun reported on how common it is for trench work in California to violate safety guidelines â and for workers to be killed or injured as a result:
State officials issued…
July 3, 2007
By Liz Borkowski
Finally, hereâs some good news in the power struggle between the Bush administration and Congress: The House has voted to prohibit the White Houseâs Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) from spending any money on an executive order that gives political appointees…
July 3, 2007
At first, the FOIA request for workplace inspection data seemed straight forward.  The requester asked for all records contained in OSHA's database of industrial hygiene samples for the contaminant beryllium during the period 1979 to 2005.  Previously, OSHA had provided on numerous ocassions…
July 3, 2007
Michael Mooreâs Sicko brought in $4.5 million in its opening weekend, and it seems like anyone whoâs seen it has an opinion about the film and its subject. The WSJ health blog has compiled reviews from major newspapers; if youâre interested in blogger reactions, too, we have a few suggestions:…
July 2, 2007
Chad notes, in response to PZ's rather absurd assertion that biology is the only Dumped Upon science, and that physics is so well treated in movies and TV, that "Most of the SF movies I see are lucky if they can get Newton's Laws right, let alone any of the finer points of astrophysics."
Indeed,…
July 2, 2007
When I heard Christie Whitman was going to testify before the House Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties subcommittee , I hoped that if she were pressured by the Bush administration to hide her concerns about the air quality at Ground Zero and in lower Manhattan, that today might…
July 2, 2007
The current way we fund astronomy research in this country is
horribly flawed. There must be a better way. Let me suggest one that I
believe that we should consider.
Now, yes, you are all going to be cynical and say, "Rob thinks it's
flawed because he's had trouble getting funding, and the main…
July 1, 2007
The Newmont Mining Company reports that the body of gold miner Dan Shaw, 30, was recovered on June 30 after an 11-day rescue effort. The federal agency responsible for miners' safety and health, MSHA, has zero, zilch, nada on its website about the accident, the rescue or the recovery effort. …
June 30, 2007
Second Life isn't a game, exactly. Some call it that, and indeed it is sometimes compared to various massive multiplayer online roleplaying games (MMORPGs). Really, though, Second Life is a virtual online world— it's not really a game, and there aren't a lot of default "gameplay" elements. Some…
June 30, 2007
Every day, reading the newspapers or listen to the radio, we are barraged with reminders of how screwed up our society, our country is. We see these things, and have a realization that there is little to no hope that they will change any time soon.
I can only take so much despair. I can only take…
June 29, 2007
Climate change is a big issue in DC these days, and the folks at Gristmill are following the drama. David Roberts updates us on some of the recent developments in Congress, Kate Sheppard tracks efforts to eliminate tax breaks for Hummer purchases, and Van Jones applauds the House Education and…
June 29, 2007
NGC 7331 is a spiral galaxy, probably not too dissimilar from our own (except that it lacks a bar), which is relatively nearby. (At a mere 49 million light-years, it's not in our own back yard, but it's just down the block.)
Image: Paul Mortfield and Dietmar Kupke/Flynn Haase/NOAO/AURA/NSF…
June 28, 2007
MSHA's Assistant Secretary announced that he is creating an Office of Accountability to provide
"enhanced oversight, at the highest level in the agency, to ensure that we are doing our utmost to enforce safety and health laws in our nation's mines."
The announcement came with the release of three…
June 28, 2007
My colleague Celeste Monforton has just posted a new case study at DefendingScience.org, and itâs worth a read for anyone interested in industry attempts to bury information about productsâ potential harmful effects.
The American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists (ACGIH) is a private…
June 27, 2007
As Dick Clapp wrote earlier this month, Rachel Carsonâs critics have used the 100th anniversary of her birth as an occasion to attack the influential environmental author. In the New York Times, columnist John Tierney (sub only) called Carsonâs classic work Silent Spring âa hodgepodge of science…
June 27, 2007
I will be on the road for the next 3 days, so you are unlikely to hear from me.
June 27, 2007
In the Chinese provinces of Henan and Shanxi, police have raided 7,500 brick kilns and rescued hundreds of slave laborers, many of them children. Victims were kidnapped or entrapped with offers of work and then sold into slavery; officials report arresting 250 people for the crimes. Jane Macartney…
June 26, 2007
By Peter Lurie, MD, MPH, Deputy Director, Public Citizenâs Health Research Group
Dr. Lurie is a contributor to Public Citizenâs drug newsletter, available at www.worstpills.org. He will present testimony on state doctor gift disclosure laws before the Senate Special Committee on Aging on Wednesday…