chemicals policy
kkrisberg | December 4, 2015Take a quick look around your home and chances are you’ll find at least one product with an ingredient simply described as “fragrance.” But what exactly does that mean and is there anything harmful in the ubiquitous chemical cocktails we refer to as fragrance? Maybe. But the real answer is that it’s hard to know for sure — and that, say advocates, is bad for public health.
“The problem with fragrance is a systemic one,” Alexandra Scranton, director of science and research at Women’s Voices for the Earth (WVE), told me. “It’s a black box of an industry.”
Scranton is the author of a new report…
kkrisberg | October 21, 2015Flame retardants aren’t just found in your furniture. It’s likely you also have detectable amounts of the chemical in your body too, which is pretty worrisome considering the growing amount of research connecting flame retardants to serious health risks. Researchers have linked to the chemicals to reproductive health problems, adverse neurobehavioral development in kids, and endocrine and thyroid disruption. And so the question arises: Do the risks of today’s flame retardants outweigh the benefits?
Chemical engineer Christopher Ellison, an associate professor in the University of Texas-Austin…
kkrisberg | October 14, 2015At the Minneapolis Star Tribune, reporter Jeffrey Meitrodt authored an outstanding four-part series on one of the nation’s deadliest occupations: farm work. In “Tragic Harvest,” Meitrodt chronicles the impact of lax farmworker safety rules and the rise in worker fatalities in Minnesota. He begins his series with the story of farmworker Richard Rosetter:
Richard Rosetter stood inside his 28-foot grain bin and smashed a shovel into the thick layer of ice that covered his corn.
He was in a foul mood. His wife and a neighbor were pestering him, upset that he was working by himself, with no…
kkrisberg | August 25, 2015Reporter Anna Merlan at Jezebel chronicles the stories of women truck drivers who experienced severe sexual harassment and rape after enrolling in a training program. Her story begins with Tracy (who asked Merlan not to use her last name), who attended a driving school that contracts with Cedar Rapids Steel Transport Van Expedited (CRST), which is among the largest trucking companies in the country. During her training, Tracy was matched with a seasoned trucker who was supposed to help her safely accrue the training hours she needed before she could drive a truck on her own. Merlan reports:…
kkrisberg | June 30, 2015This week, the Center for Public Integrity launched a new investigative series into the failure of regulators to protect workers for toxic exposures. The series begins with the story of a bricklayer who developed acute silicosis after exposure to silica, a deadly substance that threatens more than 2 million workers and that OSHA has been struggling to regulate for 40 years. The bricklayer, Chris Johnson, is just 40 years old and can expect to survive less than five years. Reporters Jim Morris, Jamie Smith Hopkins and Maryam Jameel write:
An 18-month investigation by the Center for Public…
kkrisberg | June 12, 2015The science on the health effects of fracking is still very much emerging. Oftentimes, the growing body of research can’t make a conclusive link between the drilling technique and negative health impacts, but it certainly makes the case that more research is needed. Earlier this month, another study joined the pack.
Published June 3 in the journal PLOS ONE, the study found that women who lived closer to a high density of fracking activity were more likely to have babies with lower birth weights than women living farther away from such drilling activity. The study is the first of its kind to…
cmonforton | May 18, 2015Congress continues to take key legislative steps to reform the 40 year old Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). The latest move came last week in a subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. In a bi-partisan unanimous vote (21-0) on May 14, the Subcommittee on Environment and Economy reported out the TSCA Modernization Act. It is now ready for action by the full Committee.
We’ve reported previously on The Pump Handle about a TSCA reform bill making its way in the Senate. The Vitter/Udall bill (S.697) has 39 co-sponsors, evenly split between Republicans and Democrats. Kim…
lborkowski | May 11, 2015[Update below (5/15/15)]
by Cora Roelofs, ScD
Kudos to Sarah Maslin Nir for shedding light on the working conditions faced by nail salon workers in her recent two-part New York Times exposé “Perfect Nails, Poisoned Workers.” I and others across the country have been working to document and illuminate the effects of the systematic failures that produce the unhealthful conditions faced by these workers and, many times, their employers as well. As described in our investigation of nail salon conditions in Boston, despite tremendous evidence of bad conditions and symptoms related to work in these…
cmonforton | April 30, 2015They’ve called it a failure and a broken law. That’s how the public health community, agency officials, some lawmakers and others have characterized the nearly 40 year old Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). When any of them are looking for a poster child to illustrate why TSCA’s a failure, they most often point to one toxic: asbestos.
EPA tried in 1989 to ban most uses of asbestos. But TSCA is so convoluted that the ban didn't withstand a lawsuit which was brought by producers and users of the deadly mineral fibers. So we are stuck with a law in which one of the most well-researched, and…
kkrisberg | April 27, 2015Today, Maine’s legislature held a hearing on the Toxic Chemicals in the Workplace Act, a proposal to require employers to identify harmful chemicals in the workplace and replace them with safer alternatives. It’s the perfect example of state action on behalf of worker safety and exactly the kind of measure that might no longer be possible under two congressional proposals aimed at overhauling the federal Toxic Substances Control Act.
As Congress considers a number of legislative proposals to reform the 1976 Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) — a law that hasn’t been updated since its passage…
cmonforton | April 17, 2015The AFL-CIO outlined in an April 13 letter the “serious flaws and deficiencies” in a bill introduced by Senators David Vitter (R-LA) and Tom Udall (D-NM) to reform the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). The country’s largest labor federation noted its deep involvement in the passage of TSCA in 1976, but its disappointment that the 40 year old law has “failed to provide meaningful and effective regulation” of toxic substances. (Even efforts to ban asbestos failed under the law.)
The labor federation has an important voice and perspective when it comes to chemical hazards. Workers are the…
kkrisberg | April 7, 2015Americans increasingly want to know that their steaks were humanely raised or their produce was organically grown, but what about the people who picked that produce or cared for those cows? Where’s the concern for the workers behind our food? Reporter Stephen Lurie explored that question in an article published last week in Vox. He writes:
Organic and environmentally sustainable certifications lead consumers to supposedly wholesome products, but they hold no guarantees about the wholesomeness of the companies that produce those goods. Sitting down to a farm-to-table meal at a chic restaurant…
kkrisberg | March 31, 2015For years, advocates have been calling on policymakers to reform the nation’s outdated chemical safety laws. Today, two such bills stand before Congress — one that advocates say better protects the public’s health and another that advocates warn is a dangerous step backward.
Introduced in the Senate earlier this month within just days of each other, each bill takes aim at the federal Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), which was enacted in 1976 and hasn’t been updated since. Under TSCA, which doesn’t require chemicals undergo health impact testing before being released into the marketplace,…
kkrisberg | February 24, 2015It’s a toxic chemical that made headlines when it was linked to deaths and injuries among popcorn factory workers, and federal regulators are well aware of its dangers. But, unfortunately, diacetyl is still hurting workers. In “Gasping for Action,” reporter Raquel Rutledge at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel writes about diacetyl, a chemical that tastes like butter and is used in food products and e-cigarettes, and the dangers it continues to pose to workers who breath it in, particularly coffee workers. She writes:
Coffee roasters sometimes add it to flavor coffee. High concentrations of…
cmonforton | February 5, 2015Workplace safety is one of the core issues of concern for the thousands of refinery workers who went on strike February 1 at plants in Texas, California, Washington, and Kentucky. The workers are members of the United Steelworkers (USW), and say their employers--- LyondellBasell, Marathon Oil, and Royal Dutch Shell---put lives at risk with excessive work hours, delayed maintenance, and production pressure. Their previous contract was negotiated and approved in 2012.
“Union members believe it is time to take a stand,” USW spokesperson Lynn Hancock told the Houston Chronicle. “If we don't, our…
egrossman | February 2, 2015When negotiations over legislation to reform the 39-year-old Toxics Substance Control Act (TSCA) broke down this past fall, among the major points that remained unresolved were how a revised TSCA would treat state and other local chemicals management regulations and how – and under what timelines – the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) would prioritize chemicals for safety review. As of early this year, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle in the House and Senate have issued statements about their commitment to produce a bipartisan bill. Chemical industry trade associations and…
lborkowski | February 2, 2015by Amy Liebman, MPA, MA
Pesticide drift from a pear orchard sickened 20 farmworkers laboring in a neighboring cherry orchard in April 2014, in Washington State, according to a new Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Interestingly, and critically, the exposure came to light because a newspaper reporter tipped off the Washington Department of Agriculture, who then contacted the Washington Department of Health. Where were the clinician reports?
Off-drift pesticide poisonings are serious occupational hazards that can be prevented; this…
kkrisberg | January 21, 2015As more research is emerging on the potential health effects of fracking, a new study — perhaps the largest to date of its kind — has found that people living near natural gas wells may be at increased risk for adverse health impacts, including skin and respiratory conditions.
Published in the January issue of Environmental Health Perspectives, the study is based on the self-reported health symptoms of nearly 500 people in 180 households in Washington County, Pennsylvania, a community home to some of the most long-standing and intense natural gas drilling activities. Researchers found that…
egrossman | January 19, 2015If you’re in the market for a paint remover and head to your local hardware store, most of the products you’re likely to find will contain methylene chloride. These products’ containers promise “professional results” – that they remove paint “in 10 minutes” – and that they are “specially formulated for antiques and fine furniture.” One called “Dad’s Easy Spray,” suggests it can be used to remove paint from fabrics and rugs. Also available are adhesive removers and “prepaint” products that contain methylene chloride. Some of these come in aerosol dispensers.
These products all carry hazard…
kkrisberg | January 13, 2015BuzzFeed reporter David Noriega investigated work-related fatalities among Latino construction workers, finding that the risk of dying on the job is on the rise for such workers, who are losing their lives in greater numbers and at disproportionate rates than others in the industry. He writes:
After the housing bust bottomed out in 2010, the fatality rate among Latino construction workers rose by nearly 20%. For non-Latinos, the fatality rate has dropped by more than 5%.
According to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), between 2010 and 2013, the number of deaths among Latinos in…