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Dow Chemical's "exemplary" worker safety program, an utter failure for Brian Johns, 45, burn victim

[Updated below (July 12, 2013)] [Updated below (June 21, 2013)] "His skin was on fire," is the lead sentence in a story that I knew wouldn't have a happy ending.  Dianna Wray of the Houston Press writes about the July 2012 incident at Dow Chemical/Rohm & Haas plant in Deer Park, TX which took the life of Brian Johns, 45. "July 17, 2012, was another ordinary day for Johns. He pulled up in his pickup truck to the chemical plant he'd worked at as an operator for more than a decade and started his shift on the dot at 5 p.m.  He moved through the massive construction of interconnected pipes…

The Story of M.

As you may remember, after waiting for a long time for a sibling placement, Eric and I took what was supposed to be a weekend placement of a little boy, M. back in October. We picked him up on a Thursday afternoon, anticipating he'd go to his father on Monday, but for various reasons, that didn't work out. They had already done an extensive search of extended family, and we were told that M. might be with us for the long haul, until his Mother was able to take him again - and for various reasons, it wasn't clear whether Mom would be able to take him back. Now the first rule of foster…

Kevin Drum on Reasons Why We Might Not Be Able To Return to Growth

- The basic Rogoff/Reinhart observation that financial collapses due to asset bubbles just take a long time to work through. Given the size of the 2008 collapse, historical evidence suggests that it's going to take five or six years to recover, and that's that. - The Tyler Cowen "Great Stagnation" hypothesis. We've picked through all the low-hanging economic fruit over the past century, and like it or not, we're now entering an extended period of low productivity growth because we're not inventing lots of cool new stuff. - The related (I think) investment drought hypothesis. Ben Bernanke…

The Fruit Olympiad

Some parents are soccer parents. Some parents are baseball or gymnastics parents. Some drive constantly to swim, cheer, play volleyball or cricket. My kids do swim, play basketball in winter and pick-up baseball anytime, but our primary family sport is fruit picking. Historically speaking, berrying is children's work - one sent the kids out into the woods for the afternoon and if they are not eaten by bears (think _Blueberries for Sal_, _Farmer Boy_, and other classic treatments of the "meet the bear in the woods while berrying") they come back with a pail of berries for canning. We, of…

Note to Parents - No Sleeping!

There's an article about a couple of recent cases charging people (read: mothers) with neglect if they (gasp!) dare to go to sleep around their children. A couple of weeks ago in Delaware, a woman put her 3-year-old down for a nap and then took a nap herself. The 3-year-old got up and somehow escaped the house. After the girl was found, police charged her mother with child endangerment. In New York, a woman's 3-year-old son got up in the middle of the night and wandered around. The woman woke up at some point and called the police. A man who had spotted the child had already called police.…

Monbiot's Clear-Eyed Assessment of our Climate Situation

A couple of years ago, George Monbiot wrote a column in the Guardian arguing with me. He was responding to an essay that I'd written arguing that there was no good evaluation of the potential climate impacts of a rapid build-out of renewable energies, and that it was possible that given the short time frame, that even if we were to actually get the political and social will to do so, we might cross critical tipping points in our attempt to save ourselves. Monbiot argued that this was indeed a real possibility, but that we had to try it anyway, since the stakes were so high. I responded…

On the Problem of Community

John Michael Greer has a superb piece up about our reluctance to seriously consider real community and organizational strategies. I think it is well worth reading for anyone interested in this question of community - because we have to ask ourselves, if this is the tool we've got, why do so few of us want to do the work? Why are so few of us able to do the work? It's interesting to speculate about why that took place. I suspect many of my readers have encountered Robert Putnam's widely discussed book Bowling Alone (2000), which traced the collapse of social networks and institutions…

Has the U.S. Chemical Safety Board gone toothless?

The U.S. Chemical Safety Board (CSB) released its report and recommendations yesterday on the December 19, 2007 explosion at the T2 laboratory in Jacksonville, Florida.  The violent explosion took the lives of four individuals: Charles Budds Bolchoz, 48, Karey Renard Henry, 35, Parish Lamar Ashley36, and Robert Scott Gallagher, 49.  The CSB compared to blast to one from 1,400 pounds of TNT, and one "capable of flinging a one-ton chunk of the steel reactor onto a set of railroad tracks, then into a building 400 feet from where it had stood."   At the time of the disaster, the company…

Tinkering, or real changes to OSHA VPP?

In May, the Government Accountability Office issued a critical report assessing OSHA's program for monitoring its designated Voluntary Protection Program (VPP) sites.  There are about 2,200 of these VPP site across the country which have met the written program and on-site evaluation criteria.  A VPP designation exempts the worksite from programmed OSHA inspections, and if an inspection is conducted---because of a complaint, referral or fatality/catastrophe----the employer is not cited for violations if they are promptly corrected.  This recent GAO report was peppered with…

Identifying Lead-poisoned Adults

The 1,050 State public health experts who make up the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists (CSTE) is urging the States and CDC to adopt a new case definition for adults of elevated blood-lead levels (BLL) and to require laboratories to report ALL blood lead test results to NIOSH's Adult Blood Lead and Epidemiology (ABLES) Program.  CSTE recommends the definition of  an "elevated BLL" change from 25 ug/dl and greater, to 10 ug/dl and greater.  The CSTE's policy statement is grounded on the growing body of evidence linking "low" levels of lead in adults with decreased …

MSHA's E-Hearing: A Logistical Nightmare

Last month, the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) proposed a rule that would require all U.S. mine operators to adopt the Dept of Transportation's 100-page regulation on drug- and alcohol-testing.  Setting aside the fact that MSHA's proposal is a poorly designed, substantiated and written, the following is a news account, reported by Mine Safety and Health News and used with permission, about MSHA's public hearing on the proposed rule.  The public hearing was held on Tuesday, October 14. "MSHA may continue yesterdayâs public hearing  on its proposed rule to require alcohol and…

Fightin' Words from OSHA Fairness Coalition

The OSHA Fairness Coalition weighed in with some fightin' words yesterday, expressing "unequivocal opposition" to a mine safety bill scheduled for mark-up in the House Education and Labor Committee.  This is the same group that opposed the "Popcorn Workers Lung Disease Prevention Act" when it successfully moved through Congress in September.  At that time, we wondered what the Messenger Courier Association of the Americas, or the Independent Electrical Contractors, or the Roofing Contractors Association had to do with butter-flavoring agents, but whatever, the Chamber of Commerce and…

Choosing a Medical Specialty II---the view from above

MarkH is going through the process of deciding what to what to do when he grows up. This is a much more difficult and important decision than many may realize. In order to understand the gravity of this process, I'll have to refresh your memories a bit regarding medical education. In the U.S., to apply for medical school, you must have completed a (usually) 4-year bachelor's degree from a university. During the final year, you take what amounts to an entrance exam (the MCAT), and send out preliminary applications (often with fees). If the schools like your preliminary applications, they…

Allergies of the first kind---type I hypersensitivity explained in context

If you have kids you have probably been exposed to the idea that more kids have food allergies these days. Well, the data seem to bear this out. There are several hypotheses about why this is so, but not a lot of data. Rather than engage in speculation, I'd like to wade back into the dangerous waters of real science and tell you a little about allergies. Perhaps after you've read my grossly oversimplified explication, you'll come up with your own science-based hypothesis to explain increased childhood food allergies. First, let's talk about what isn't going on. The Huffington Post, always…

Journalist becomes the story: Discover Magazine luvs teh denialists.

HT erv. This is truly annoying because it is so patently wrong. It's wrong in lots of different ways, but I'll help point out some of the major flaws. What happens when journalist becomes the story, rather than reports it? You see, there is this journalist, Celia Farber, who apparently has been following the HIV denialists since the beginning. From reading this interview with her in Discover Magazine, it would seem that she is suffering from some sort of Stockholm Syndrome. Not only that, but the journalist interviewing her shows a complete lack of suspicion, and seems to be one of those…

HIV/AIDS denialism is deadly - The sick bastards have another victim

If anyone has been deluded into thinking HIV/AIDS denialism isn't dangerous or deadly, all one has to do is look at the fruits of their labor on the AIDS myth exposed message boards. Their latest monstrosity is to convince an HIV positive mother to refuse medical care and testing for her and her child. Momma2girls82 writes on their message board about becoming a denialist and asking for help from the denialist community: So I've always been one to go 'against the grain'. I firmly believe that one should question everything they are told 'just is' and determine their own beliefs based on…

Student guest post: Tuberculosis: A Real Problem With No Real Solution

Student guest post by Jack Hamersky After successfully completing a job interview I had the opportunity to take the next step in my employment process: taking a Tuberculosis or TB test.  I have received the test before but never really understood the point of testing for a disease no one ever sees in my community. I always thought, “Why not focus all this effort and money on more prevalent infectious agents such as Ebola or HIV?” You know, focus on something important.  So, as the nurse called me in from the waiting room I began to curse that hard little bubble that would soon be forming…

Sex in the MRI

This morning I got a question in e-mail, asking if I'd heard of a particular paper. Of course I had, it's a very fun bit of research...and then I realized I'd never mentioned it on the weblog before. I guess it's because it's focused entirely on the phylum Chordata, specifically one rather peculiar species—Homo sapiens. I probably just assumed nobody would be interested, because there aren't any arthropods or molluscs in it. The paper is all about visualizing the arrangement of organs during coitus. People have tried to figure out how the pieces all fit together internally using cadavers…

Reviewing the big P...Prions!

Student guest post by Rajeshwari Nair Discussion on consumption of meat products is a common occurrence in my household. Hailing from India, I have always relished meat dishes that my mom cooks up, hot and spicy! However, there is always a nagging guilt on eating animals. People have tried convincing me that we are all part of the food-chain in this ecosystem, so either eat or be eaten. However, in recent times one thought crosses my mind when I stuff that yummy piece of meat in my salivating mouth, will this karma get to me soon? Will my brain dissolve as I chew on the brain of this mute…

Cytomegalovirus and Heart Disease

Student guest post by Dayna Groskreutz Heart disease is the leading cause of death in adults in the United States. Acute coronary syndrome (ACS) is a term which includes both heart attacks and unstable angina. ACS occurs, in part, due to atherosclerosis, or plaque accumulation leading to narrowing of the artery. Some known risk factors for atherosclerosis and ACS include smoking, family history, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol. Recently, the role of inflammation in the development of atherosclerosis and ACS has been an area of intense study. Proposed causes of inflammation include…

There's no crying in academia!

Over at Am I a woman scientist? I ran across this post discussing crying in the workplace. I'd never given much consideration to the issue previously, but there are several thought-provoking posts and articles on the topic. First, let me take a step back to a post Am I a woman scientist? linked to, here at A Natural Scientist musing about crying as a sign of weakness in women. From there, a link goes back to this Chronicle story describing the aftermath of a miscarriage, and the author's inability to discuss it with anyone at work for fear of breaking down and crying. Some interesting…

Low Grades for Voluntary Chemical Reporting

By Liz Borkowski  Here in the U.S., people seem to like the idea of our government ensuring that weâve got clean air, clean water, and healthy workplaces, and that our exposure to toxic substances is limited. However, we also keep electing politicians who make it hard for federal agencies to ensure these things. Weâve written before about problems at OSHA, where workers suffer from preventable harm while officials emphasize voluntary compliance at the expense of standard-setting, and at FDA, where a rush to review new drug applications leaves post-market drug safety under-resourced. While…

The CPSC: Another Toothless Public Health Agency

By David Michaels Gretchen Morgenson, the terrific New York Times reporter, has a disturbing piece that describes how the toothless Consumer Products Safety Commission (CPSC) has little ability to force hazardous consumer products of the shelves of toy stores. The focus of her report is on super powerful miniature toy magnets. They are candy colored and easily eaten by small children. Morgensonâs article is a powerful case for new legislation that gives the CPSC some real power. It is also another piece of evidence documenting how law suits serve as the de facto regulatory system, since our…

People Power in the Fight Against TB

By Liz Borkowski  Last week, Revere at Effect Measure used extremely drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR TB) as an example of why the world needs a resilient and robust public health infrastructure (and just a few days later, an article on an XDR outbreak in South Africa made it to the New York Timesâ list of the 10 most e-mailed articles). Earlier this month, Laurie Garrett, a senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations, published an article in Foreign Affairs (subscription only) in which she listed TB as one of the diseases thatâs been getting more money and…

Two conservative opinions on Global Warming from WaPo

Oddly enough, I agree with (most) of one of them. The attack on Newsweek's article "The Truth About Deniers continues with a piece from Robert Samuelson in the WaPo. Samuelson, true to form, sees a hard problem and resorts to saying, "It's hard, we can't do anything about it!" His boring fatalism on any difficult problem seems to always end with assertions that if something requires regulation, or proactive government, it's impossible. He's also critical of Newsweek's correct assertion that the attacks on the science aren't for legitimate "dissent" but rather represent an organized…

The many magnificent subspecies of Argali

Back in May 2007 I wrote a few articles about the world's wild sheep (Welcome.... to the world of sheep and Return.... to the world of sheep). If you're here for the dinosaurs, pterosaurs, pygmy mammoths and lake monster photos, you might regard wild sheep as pretty boring animals. But they're clearly not - they're incredible and spectacular in appearance, often surprisingly large, and they live wild lives in beautiful, wild locations. And they're highly popular, and the source of great fascination, among a great many people interested in animals - those 2007 articles have been good at…

'Cryptic intermediates' and the evolution of chameleons

One of the greatest fallacies held about evolutionary theory is that fossils are essential in demonstrating the existence of change (don't believe me? Look at 'creation science' books like Duane Gish's Evolution: the Challenge of the Fossil Record and Evolution: the Fossils Say No!). Of course, fossils do indeed show how characters were accrued and modified over time, and it's that 'time' aspect of the data that they shed crucial information on. But we most certainly do not need fossils to demonstrate the fact of evolution, as we are surrounded by evolutionary intermediates right here in the…

Pathological Programming: Do we need to have our wires crossed?

I'm sure that in the friday pathological programming languages, I have a fondness for languages that make your code beautiful: languages like [SNUSP][snusp], [Befunge][befunge], [Piet][piet], and such. Those languages all you two-dimensional layouts for their programs. [snusp]: http://scienceblogs.com/goodmath/2006/08/beautiful_insanity_pathologica… [befunge]: http://scienceblogs.com/goodmath/2006/07/friday_pathological_programmin… [piet]: http://scienceblogs.com/goodmath/2006/11/programming_in_color_fixed.php Among the nutters that make up the community of folks interested in this kind of…

'Community Organizer' - a dogwhistle for 'Black rabble-rouser'.

We know they speak in dog-whistles. If you were wondering what Sarah Palin meant by dissing 'community organizers', she was not thinking about Jesus, or Martin Luther King Jr, or Mahathma Gandhi....just so you know who their base is.... 'Community Organizers' Is a Dog Whistle: Matt is absolutely right on the merits, but, make no mistake about it, "community organizers" is code for 'uppity black people who are taking your tax dollars.' One thing that is becoming pretty clear is that the Republicans are making a desperate pitch to the remnants of Nixon's 'silent majority' (which is getting…

New and Exciting in PLoS this week

So, let's see what's new in PLoS Genetics, PLoS Computational Biology, PLoS Pathogens and PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases this week. As always, you should rate the articles, post notes and comments and send trackbacks when you blog about the papers. Here are my own picks for the week - you go and look for your own favourites: Strategies for Aspiring Biomedical Researchers in Resource-Limited Environments: Countries struggling with global health challenges desperately need local biomedical researchers to find health care solutions to address the deadly diseases that affect their populations…

New and Exciting in PLoS ONE

There are 13 new articles in PLoS ONE today. As always, you should rate the articles, post notes and comments and send trackbacks when you blog about the papers. You can now also easily place articles on various social services (CiteULike, Connotea, Stumbleupon, Facebook and Digg) with just one click. Here are my own picks for the week - you go and look for your own favourites: Perinatal Caffeine, Acting on Maternal Adenosine A1 Receptors, Causes Long-Lasting Behavioral Changes in Mouse Offspring: There are lingering concerns about caffeine consumption during pregnancy or the early…

New and Exciting in PLoS this week

So, let's see what's new in PLoS Genetics, PLoS Computational Biology, PLoS Pathogens, and PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases this week. As always, you should rate the articles, post notes and comments and send trackbacks when you blog about the papers. You can now also easily place articles on various social services (CiteULike, Connotea, Stumbleupon, Facebook and Digg) with just one click. Here are my own picks for the week - you go and look for your own favourites: A Hierarchy of Time-Scales and the Brain: Currently, there is no theory that explains how the large-scale organization of the…

Web 2.0, Science 2.0, OA, etc.

There is a new study out there - Open access publishing, article downloads, and citations: randomised controlled trial - that some people liked, but Peter Suber and Stephan Harnad describe why the study is flawed (read Harnad's entire post for more): To show that the OA advantage is an artefact of self-selection bias (or any other factor), you first have to produce the OA advantage and then show that it is eliminated by eliminating self-selection bias (or any other artefact). This is not what Davis et al did. They simply showed that they could detect no OA advantage one year after publication…

From the trenches of Open Access: Interview with Hemai Parthasarathy

Hemai Parthasarathy spent about five years as an editor at Nature before joining PLoS where she was the Managing Editor of PLoS Biology from its very beginning, through about five years of it until just a few months ago. When I got the job with PLoS and spent my first month in San Francisco, Hemai was my tutor in a sense, teaching me the lore of the inner sanctum of the publishing world - how it works, who is who, why Open Access, and other useful stuff. So she was a natural choice for me to invite to lead a session on Open Science: how the Web is changing the way science is done, written…

New and Exciting in PLoS Biology

Lots of good stuff in PLoS Biology this week: Cognitive Dimensions of Predator Responses to Imperfect Mimicry: Many palatable animals, for example hoverflies, deter predators by mimicking well-defended insects such as wasps. However, for human observers, these flies often seem to be little better than caricatures of wasps--their visual appearance and behaviour are easily distinguishable from those which they are attempting to mimic. This imperfect mimicry baffles evolutionary biologists, because one might expect natural selection to do a more thorough job. Here we discuss two types of…

Lost Bird of Paradise Found, In Paradise

Male Berlepsch's Six-wired Bird of Paradise, Parotia berlepschi. Photo by Bruce Beehler. Click image for larger version in its own window. I would give anything -- in fact, I'd give absolutely everything I ever had, currently have and could ever hope to have -- to be part of the recent Conservation International (CI) expedition to Indonesia. This month-long expedition was the brain child of scientist and CI vice president, Bruce Beehler. His goal? To explore the mysterious Foja Mountains in western New Guinea, formerly known as Irian Jaya. Beehler gathered a team of 25 international…

Rare Okapi Photographed in the Rainforests of Africa

tags: Okapi, Okapia johnstoni, camera trap, zoology, rare mammals, Democratic Republic of Congo, Congo rainforest, African Wildlife, Zoological Society of London This undated image provided by the Zoological Society of London, Thursday, 11 September 2008, shows an okapi, Okapia johnstoni, in Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of the Congo proving that the species is still surviving there despite more than one decade of civil conflict. The Zoological Society of London says cameras set up in Congo have snapped the first photos of the rare okapi roaming wild. Okapi have…

Sputnik Challenges Our Current Definition of Life

tags: virology, mimivirus, sputnik, virophage, microbiology, molecular biology Now here's an astonishing discovery that's hot off the presses: a virus that infects other viruses! This amazing finding is being published tomorrow in the top-tier peer-reviewed journal, Nature. I don't know about you, but when I was in school, I was taught that viruses could only infect other living cells, and further, I was taught that viruses are not living cells. So, logically, one could conclude that viruses cannot infect other viruses. But a new discovery by a group of scientists in France reveals…

Fragments of a shipboard talk

Since it has been a long time since I contributed any content to Pharyngula…here's something. I was asked to give a brief talk on the ship, so I've tossed my written draft below the fold. With these short talks I like to write the story first, but when I get up on the stage and actually perform it, I don't bring notes or anything like that, so what is actually said follows the structure of what I wrote, and some of the wording comes through, but it tends to be rather different. Probably a lot different —I know I extemporized a fair bit on the last half. This is all you get until I've had a…

fictional scenarios

I know this is tiresome, but I find it interesting to play "what if..." I'll get back to all science soon. No point in dynamic web logs if they don't respond dynamically to changing issues... eh? So, what if the US wanted to launch a pre-emptive strike on Iran, ASAP, either 'cause someone thinks they should, or because of some provocation they choose to accept as casus belli? The US could do a cold start conventional attack with less than 24 hour notice, but ideally they'd want about 3 days to get ready. More, if the Navy is in on it, subs and maybe carriers, need to be moved into place.…

A gene by many other names and thoughts on teaching bioinformatics

One of the things that drives me crazy on occasion is nomenclature. Well, maybe not just nomenclature, it's really the continual changes in the nomenclature, and the time it takes for those changes to ripple through various databases and get reconciled with other kinds of information. And the realization that sometimes this reconciliation may never happen. One of the projects that I've been working on during the past couple of years has involved developing educational materials that use bioinformatics tools to look at the isozymes that metabolize alcohol. As part of this project, I've been…

Will we ever stop running away from the source of the problem?

This story about the struggles of a high school biology teacher in Florida is depressing. David Campbell, the teacher, is a hero — but it's the kind of hero sent off to suffer and fail in a misplaced struggle, who dutifully falls in battle, a victim of bad leadership and poor strategy. It's the same old tactics the educational bureaucracy has been pushing for 50 years or more: tip-toe gently about the subject of religion, never challenge the idiocy students bring into the classroom with them, always strain to allow them to accommodate science to their personal superstitions…which means…

The Last Flight of The Scarlet Macaw: One Woman's Fight to Save the World's Most Beautiful Bird

tags: The Last Flight of The Scarlet Macaw, conservation, endangered species, parrots, politics, Bruce Barcott, book review Nonfiction books are often thought of as being "good for us", as if they were literary vitamin tablets, but many people take their summers off from their vitamins by reading trashy novels or mysteries while ensconced under an umbrella on a sandy beach. So what would you say if you could read a book that has the best qualities of both genres? If you think that such a book doesn't exist, well, think again: Bruce Barcott's recently published book, The Last Flight of The…

Ethics for the Real World: Creating a Personal Code to Guide Decisions in Work and Life

tags: Ethics for the Real World, Ronald A. Howard, Clinton D. Korver, book review We are confronted with seemingly small ethical choices every day of our lives, ranging from whether we should plagiarize a homework assignment, cheat on an exam, "pad" our resumes, pilfer office supplies, tell a "white lie" to a loved one ... if the average person cannot trust himself to behave in a consistently ethical way in such small matters, is it any wonder that most people do not trust their colleagues, neighbors, friends, families and even their elected officials? Unfortunately, small lapses in ethical…

Austin's Construction Career Center providing a path toward safer, better-paying jobs

by Kim Krisberg "To know you participated in building something in your city — it's just an experience, you know?" Those are words from Austin, Texas, native Christopher McDavid, 22, a graduate of the city's newly established Construction Career Center. During his time at the center, McDavid got certified in flagger safety (flaggers direct the safe passage of traffic through construction areas), first aid and CPR, and basic concrete work and received his OSHA 10 certification, which he said "has opened my eyes to actually see the things that can be harmful to me." Now, McDavid is looking for…

Critical mass for federal bike, pedestrian funds

by Kim Krisberg Mark Martin isn't inclined to sit down and shut up -- well, unless it's on the seat of a bicycle. "More people need joy in their lives and there's a real simple way to get it: ride a bicycle," Martin told me. "It's a joyous thing to ride a bike." The Baton Rouge, La., bicyclist hasn't owned a car in 20 years -- "I just love my bike," he said. In fact, he loves biking so much that he said he was driving people crazy talking about the need for better biking and pedestrian infrastructure in his community. Somebody ought to do something about it, he thought, and so he did.…

Study: Cuts to Texas’ family planning budget led to more abortion, unintended teen pregnancy

In 2011, Texas legislators slashed the state’s family planning budget by 67 percent. The justification? To reduce abortions by defunding clinics associated with an abortion provider (read: Planned Parenthood). Now, it turns out Texas legislators actually accomplished the opposite: narrowing access to family planning services only led to more unplanned pregnancies and more abortions. In a study that will soon be published in the Journal of Health Economics, researcher Analisa Packham found that in the years following the 2011 funding cuts, Texas’ teen birth rate went up by 3.4 percent, which…

By 2036, Senate bill would cut Medicaid by more than one-third

The Congressional Budget Office’s initial score of the Senate’s “Better Care Reconciliation Act” calculated that 22 million people, 15 million of them Medicaid beneficiaries, would lose health insurance by 2026. For Medicaid recipients, though, the picture worsens steadily after that ten-year window, due to per-capita caps on how much the federal government would contribute. At the request of Senate Budget Committee Ranking Member Bernie Sanders and Finance Committee Ranking Member Ron Wyden, CBO has also estimated Medicaid spending for the post-2026 decade under current law vs the BCRA. They…

Study: Seven-fold increase in antibiotic-resistant infection among children

Most news on the dangers of antibiotic-resistant infections focus on adults. But children are very much at risk too. In fact, a recent study found that U.S. children have experienced a 700 percent surge in infections caused by particular bacteria that’s both resistant to multiple antibiotics and responsible for growing numbers of serious bacterial infections in kids. “These organisms are scary, they’re hard to treat and respond to few antibiotics…and it’s the type of antibiotic resistance that’s capable of spreading itself to adjacent bacteria even if those bacteria haven’t been exposed to…

Occupational Health News Roundup

At the Denver Post, John Ingold and Monte Whaley authored a year-long investigative series into the dangerous conditions facing Colorado’s oil and gas workers, the role of subcontracting in heightening worker safety risks, and the lack of employer accountability and oversight. The series, “Drilling through danger,” noted that 1,333 workers died in the nation’s oil and gas fields between 2003 and 2014, with 2014 being the second-most lethal year for oil and gas workers in Colorado in a decade. According to the newspaper’s analysis, there was about one oil and gas worker death per every 12 rigs…