Environmental health
cmonforton | February 1, 2011The Lowell Center for Sustainable Production (LCSP) is known for challenging the status quo. Its scientists and policy analysts refuse to accept we have to live in a world where parents are worried about toxic toys, or companies feel forced to choose between earning profits and protecting the environment. Leave it to LCSP researchers to describe six cases of systemic worker health and safety failures, yet manage to identify small successes or opportunities to create them. That's the Lowell way:
"...infuse hope and opportunity into a system that may appear severely broken."
In "Lessons…
egrossman | January 31, 2011by Elizabeth Grossman
The 398-page National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling final Report to the President on the Deepwater Horizon: The Gulf Oil Disaster and the Future of Offshore Drilling, released January 11, offers a scathing critique of the offshore oil-drilling industry's approach to safety and of the U.S. government's systemic failure to ensure that safety. It also includes a valuable history of the industry that helps explain - but does not excuse - the structural complexities and shortcomings of the response to the disaster, deficiencies that…
egrossman | January 21, 2011by Elizabeth Grossman
On August 28, 2008 at 10:53 p.m., a massive explosion and fire, caused by a runaway chemical reaction, ripped through the Bayer CropScience pesticide plant in Institute, West Virginia. It killed two workers and injured eight employees, two contractors, and six fire-fighters, all of whom were treated for possible toxic chemical exposure. On January 20, 2011, the Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB) released its investigation report. Each of its key findings points to a disaster waiting to happen.
The incident occurred at the facility's Methomyl-Larvin…
cmonforton | January 18, 2011Have you seen the new TV commercial for Jack-in-the-Box set in a busy police precinct? A confident, all-business police detective barks into the phone:
"Tell the Mayor to shove it."
He slams down the phone, walks purposely across the room and asks outloud:
"Hey rookie, did you get lunch?"
A guy in a black police uniform with a large ping-pong ball smiley face head says:
"Yes I did. I went to the convenient Jack in the Box and got each of us the Jumbo Deal, comprised of a Jumbo Jack (burger), two classic tacos, fries and a cold beverage for only $3.99."
The price might be right, but…
lborkowski | January 18, 2011by Rena Steinzor, cross-posted from CPR Blog
Sixteen months ago, President Obama stood in the well of Congress and issued a ringing call for a progressive vision of government. Working to persuade Members of Congress to adopt health care reform, he said that
"large-heartedness...is part of the American character." Our ability to stand in other people's shoes. A recognition that we are all in this together; that when fortune turns against one of us, others are there to lend a helping hand."
Many took comfort from that vision, the first avowedly affirmative one we had heard from a President…
lborkowski | January 13, 2011A few of the recent pieces I've liked:
Travis Saunders at the Scientific American Guest Blog: Can sitting too much kill you?
Tanya Snyder in Streetsblog Capitol Hill: Actually, Highway Builders, Roads Don't Pay for Themselves
Tina Rosenberg for the New York Times' Opinionator: To Beat Back Poverty, Pay the Poor
Ilan Greenberg in Guernica: Murder Music ("Jamaica's dancehall music is being blamed for the country's violent attacks on gays. But there are many who don't see the music as homophobic, only the battle cry of a changing nation.")
Environmental Health News compiles its Top Stories of…
lborkowski | January 4, 2011Liz and Celeste are on vacation, so we're re-posting some content from our old site.
By Liz Borkowski, orginally posted 12/3/09
Twenty-five years ago, thousands of residents of Bhopal, India awoke in the middle of the night struggling to breathe. A Union Carbide pesticide plant had leaked 40 tons of methyl isocyanate, a highly toxic substance that had escaped in gas form and spread quickly through the densely populated city. The Indian Council on Medical Research estimates that between 8,000 and 10,000 people died in the first three days after the catastrophe; another 25,000 perished later…
lborkowski | December 29, 2010Liz and Celeste are on vacation, so we're re-posting some content from our old site.
By Celeste Monforton, originally posted 4/5/10
The painful and deadly toll that asbestos imposes on families across the globe is a public health problem of growing magnitude. In the U.S., individuals who are diagnosed today with asbestos-related disease may trace their exposure to the lethal mineral fibers back several decades. The number of new cases of asbestos-related disease in the U.S. has not yet plateaued, and may not for years. Globally, the World Health Organization estimates that 125 million…
lborkowski | December 28, 2010Liz and Celeste are on vacation, so we're re-posting some content from our old site.
By Liz Borkowski, originally posted 11/6/09
Earlier today, the Senate Democratic Policy Committee held a hearing on the use of burn pits for trash at military bases in Iraq and Afghanistan - a practice that may be exposing thousands of soldiers and civilians to carcinogens, respiratory irritants, and neurotoxins. A particularly large burn pit at the Balad Air Base in Iraq has been getting a lot of attention, but the use of burn pits seems to be widespread at these military bases.
As DPC Chair Senator Byron…
lborkowski | December 24, 2010A few of the recent pieces I've liked:
Patricia Callahan and Trine Tsouderos in the Chicago Tribune: Chronic Lyme disease: A dubious diagnosis (via Orac, who critiques the backlash against the article)
The Economist: Migrant farm workers: Fields of tears
Christina Larson in Yale Environment 360: In China, a New Transparency on Government Pollution Data
Tracy Weber and Charles Ornstein at ProPublica: Med Schools Flunk at Keeping Faculty off Pharma Speaking Circuit
Adam Serwer in The American Prospect: Necessary and Proper ("Liberals can't make an effective constitutional case for the…
lborkowski | December 15, 2010The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette is running a fascinating in-depth series on air pollution in Western Pennsylvania. While it's got a local focus, I'm sure people from other regions can identify with some of the problems it highlights, like the difficulties in regulating pollution that easily crosses state lines and the frustration of seeing inadequate Clean Air Act enforcement.
The series also delves into issues of epidemiology. In the introductory article, Region at risk: Can higher rates of death be linked to air pollution?, Don Hopey and Devid Templeton explain that the Post-Gazette analyzed…
egrossman | December 13, 2010by Elizabeth Grossman
On November 30th, the Louisiana Bucket Brigade (LABB) released a bulletin reporting on the accidental release of sulfur dioxide at the Murphy Oil refinery in Meraux, Louisiana. The Bucket Brigade tracks these releases as part of its work to reduce refinery accidents, and they explain that the November 30th release is "just one of several refinery-related incidents in St. Bernard's Parish" reported around Thanksgiving weekend. On November 24th, the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality recorded "spikes" of sulfur dioxide in Chalmette, LA and on the 25th, there was…
lborkowski | December 9, 2010Yesterday I mentioned sewer systems as an indispensable part of urban infrastructure, and today I want to focus on the more visible issue of transportation. The efficiency with which people and goods move into and within cities has a huge impact on both energy use and air quality. And the availability of non-driving modes of transportation can improve people's lives in a lot of ways.
I read a few blogs that address transportation issues (Greater Greater Washington is indispensible for DC-area transportation nerds), and I'd like to address an assumption that I see a lot of commenters making:…
lborkowski | December 7, 2010As I mentioned yesterday, Sharon Astyk of Casaubon's Book and I are spending this week focusing on urbanization issues. Sharon is a farmer and has been writing for a long time about sustainable food production, particularly as it relates to climate change and a dwindling supply of fossil fuels. In her post yesterday, she linked to some of her past writing about urban issues, and the theme that ties them together is rural-urban collaboration. Cities can't grow enough food to feed all their residents, and rural areas need the durable goods that cities produce, so a reciprocal relationship is…
lborkowski | December 3, 2010A few of the recent pieces I've liked:
Robin Fields at ProPublica: In Dialysis, Life-Saving Care at Great Risk and Cost
Timothy Noah at Slate: McSurance on Trial: A Senate committee puts the spotlight on the crap health insurance given fast-food workers
EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson in the WSJ: The EPA Turns 40
Kristen Lombardi and John Solomon at The Center for Public Integrity: Big Polluters Freed From Environmental Oversight by Stimulus
Jonathan Chait in The New Republic: How Chipotle is Like the Federal Government
cmonforton | November 30, 2010No doubt that a federal agency's website can be a useful public relations tool. We all have much better access now to government data, reports and other records. That's certainly a good thing. But even the most content-rich website cannot substitute for other forms of communication and information sharing. Yet more and more lately I'm hearing reporters recount a different experience in their conversations with Obama Administration public affairs offices. During the peak of Deepwater Horizon disaster, for example, reporters were frequently told "looked at our website," "it's probably on…
cmonforton | November 26, 2010Our friend and APHA OHS colleague Mark Catlin has assembled on YouTube an amazing collection of more than 500 environmental health and safety film clips. The video collection contain footage dating back to the 1920's, with loads WWII-era films produced by the U.S. military, Public Health Service and companies promoting tires, asbestos, oil, steel, tetraethyl lead, and more. The collection has already had a million hits this year.
One of my favorites, Safety Styles, features WWII pin-up model Veronica Lake. The actress, known for her flowing long blonde peakapoo hair style, encourages…
egrossman | November 23, 2010by Elizabeth Grossman
At this year's American Public Health Association (APHA) annual meeting that took place in Denver November 7-11, the APHA's Environmental and Occupational Health and Safety sections proposed new policy statements that recommend proactive strategies for preventing illness and injury by reducing exposure to hazardous chemicals and through design that promotes workplace safety. All five policy statements presented at public hearings on November 7 have now been approved. Two additional policy proposals - one that addresses the public health impact of U.S immigration policy…
cmonforton | November 22, 2010Turkey Day is on the way. Workers employed in U.S. turkey processing plants are asking for your help to secure safer working conditions. These workers handle about 30 turkeys per minute---30 turkeys per minute---on the production line. The faster the production line moves, the faster the workers have to move to make their cuts. If they can't keep up, they won't be working there for long. Over a 10-hour shift, workers have to make more than 20,000 cuts on the turkey carcasses---20,000 cuts. At that pace, it's easy to imagine the opportunities for contamination of the meat----the…
lborkowski | November 17, 2010by Eileen Senn
After decades of dysfunction, OSHA is poised to do something about their badly outdated rules for occupational exposures to chemical hazards. Millions of U.S. workers are exposed to chemicals every day at work, such as asbestos fibers in insulation, asphalt fumes in roofing and road work, carbon monoxide gas from burning fuels, chlorine in disinfectants, formaldehyde in bonded wood, isocyanates in foam, lead in bullets and solder, liquid mercury in instruments and light bulbs, solvents in cleaning products and paints, and silica in concrete. Yet most standards for chemicals on…