chronic kidney disease
lborkowski | March 18, 2014Three years after Japan's earthquake and tsunami led to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, concerns persist about health effects while the cleanup poses ongoing health and safety challenges.
Living on Earth reports on a lawsuit filed by several US Navy sailors against the Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco). The sailors were part of a relief operation, and their ship sailed into a plume of radioactive dust. Their attorney, Charles Bonner, told Living on Earth that many sailors are now suffering from “leukemias, ulcers, brain tumors, testicular cancers, dysfunctional uterine bleeding,…
lborkowski | February 20, 2014February 7th marked two grim anniversaries of explosions that demonstrate the toll of unsafe workplaces. On February 7, 2008, an explosion and fire at the Imperial Sugar refinery in Port Wentworth, Georgia, killed 14 workers and injured 28 others. On February 7, 2010, an explosion at the Kleen Energy facility in Middletown, Connecticut, six workers were killed and at least 50 others injured.
The US Chemical Safety Board investigated both explosions. It determined that the Imperial Sugar explosion was fueled by a massive accumulation of combustible sugar dust, and that the Kleen Energy…
lborkowski | October 21, 2013This month's issue of EHS Today includes a special section on Bangladesh factory safety, a topic that has continued to attract news coverage following the April collapse of the Rana Plaza building, which killed more than 1100 workers. Sandy Smith's introductory article summarizes some of the international efforts aimed at improving working condition in Bangladesh, including support of the Bangladeshi National Action Plan for Fire and Building Safety and two different retailer initiatives.
Scott Nova critiques existing factory inspection programs for "their abject failure to provide basic…
lborkowski | September 24, 2013At the Center for Public Integrity, Sasha Chavkin has the latest news on a mystifying occupational health problem: chronic kidney disease (CKD) in young, previously healthy agricultural workers in Central America, India, and Sri Lanka. Since 2011, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists has been following CKD in agricultural workers, which researchers estimate has killed 20,000 people in Central America alone.
Chavkin reports that El Salvador's Legislative Assembly has approved a ban on 53 agrochemicals (some of which have been banned for years in most other countries),…
lborkowski | September 27, 2012Last week, warehouse workers from California's Inland Empire concluded a six-day, 50-mile march from Ontario, CA to Los Angeles with a rally at the LA City Hall. The workers are employed by NFI and Warestaff, which are contractors for Walmart. The Huffington Post's Kathleen Miles reports:
"The march, walking in the heat, was very easy compared to working in the warehouse," Raymond Castillo, a 23-year-old warehouse worker who marched with the group, told The Huffington Post.
Castillo is one of about 30 warehouse workers who walked out of the large warehousewhere they were employed in Mira…