Environmental health
revere | August 17, 2008A recent letter on the worldwide prevalence of head lice in CDC's journal Emerging Infectious Diseases made me nostalgic for the good old days when our two kids were in daycare (they are both adults with children of their own in daycare now). In particular, I got to thinking about the days when I was active as an officer in the American Public Health Association (APHA) and many years made the yearly trek to its large annual meeting. While it's a large meeting, usually over 10,000 with scientific and business sessions spread out over many hotels, there is usually one headquarters venue where…
sb admin | August 13, 2008In todayâs Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Robert McClure highlights a case involving a consultation under the Endangered Species Act â the very aspect of the ESA that the Bush Administration wants to slash.
EPA has approved three pesticides â chlorpyrifos, diazinon, and malathion â for use in areas where they will affect several species of salmon that are listed as threatened or endangered under the ESA. A coalition of fishing and environmental groups filed a lawsuit, and U.S. District Judge John Coughenour ordered the National Marine Fisheries Service to conduct a study on the pesticidesâ…
sb admin | August 12, 2008The Bush Administration wants to make it easier for federal agencies to get around the Endangered Species Act. The Washington Postâs Juliet Eilperin explains:
Under current law, agencies must subject any plans that potentially affect endangered animals and plants to an independent review by the Fish and Wildlife Service or the National Marine Fisheries Service. Under the proposed new rules, dam and highway construction and other federal projects could proceed without delay if the agency in charge decides they would not harm vulnerable species.
But how is, say, the Department of Transportation…
sb admin | August 7, 2008by Nathan Fetty
An editorial in today's New York Times is the latest media piece about the abysmal failures surrounding last summer's Crandall Canyon mine disaster in Utah. Now that investigators have revealed how the company knew of the mine's dangers, the Times says, a criminal probe is in order. Plus, MSHA's deference to the company's flawed engineering plan only made matters worse.
Clearly, as the Times points out, MSHA's aversion to hands-on enforcement has led to disastrous consequences.
The New York Times'Â editorial: Greed Above, Death Below or (full PDF) reminds readers of why a…
sb admin | July 31, 2008In a commentary on this morningâs Marketplace, the Cato Instituteâs Will Wilkinson critiqued T. Boone Pickensâ new energy plan â and in doing so, painted a misleading picture of the governmentâs role our energy usage.
Pickens wants wind energy to replace natural gas in electricity generation, and use the freed-up natural gas to fuel vehicles so we can use less foreign oil. There are problems with this energy plan, but Wilkerson is most concerned that the government might be âpicking a winnerâ if it helps Pickens realize his scheme. (Wilkerson doesnât specify exactly what Pickens wants the…
revere | July 31, 2008There's a tremendous amount of influenza A/H5N1 ("bird flu" virus) all over southeast asia and other areas where the virus is endemic in poultry. Where is this virus, exactly? We know it's in the infected birds and in their respiratory secretions and feces. We know it occasionally infects mammals (including humans). Is it found in the environment? We know very little about this, although there is good evidence it is in water where aquatic birds like ducks spend time and likely one way the virus is spread from bird to bird. In lab experiments, the virus remains intact on inanimate surfaces for…
sb admin | July 17, 2008By Michael Stebbins, orginally published at Scientists & Engineers for America Action Fund
As the sweat-soaked crowd entered the Daughters of the American Revolution Constitution Hall, to hear Al Goreâs energy challenge they were greeted by a blast of air conditioning. Relief! Sweet ironic relief! DC is obscenely hot today, yet, thousands of people were lined up along the street to hear Gore issue what was promised, a truly grand challenge. They were not disappointed.
Al Gore issued the challenge of our lifetimeâ¦
âToday I challenge our nation to commit to producing 100 percent of our…
revere | July 15, 2008What's a little sodium dichromate, anyway? So it's a known human carcinogen and can do a lot of other nasty things. No big deal. Not for Iraq war contractor, KBR, anyway. At the time KBR was a subsidiary of Defense Secretary Rumsfeld's Vice President Dick Cheney's former company, Halliburton. So when they were given a lucrative contract to clean up and safeguard Iraqi oilfields after the Bush Mission was Accomplished in 2003, they told the soldiers and workers that the chemical, used as an antirust agent and then strewn all over the oil facilities, was a "mild irritant." Later they admitted…
sb admin | July 14, 2008Starting in August, roughly 17,000 employees of the state of Utah will switch from five-day to four-day workweeks. Essential services like police and public schools wonât be affected, but an estimated 1,000 of the stateâs 3,000 buildings will be closed on Fridays. The state expects to save $3 million, and affected workers will pay for fewer commutes, which have gotten pricier as gas prices have risen.
Itâs a smart way to save energy, but how will workers deal with the new 7am â 6pm workdays? For anyone doing a job thatâs very demanding, either mentally or physically, longer workdays might…
revere | July 8, 2008The FDA and CDC still don't know the origin of the massive Salmonella outbreak, now extending to 40 states. They have lots of reasons, and under current conditions it's not an easy problem since the production channels for things like tomatoes are labyrinthine. There's lots of mixing, matching, diverting, and who knows what else going on as a tomato goes from a farm or hothouse to your table or local salad bar. We know this because FDA and CDC have been telling us so as explanation for why they still don't know where a single clone of Salmnella saintpaul has managed to infect almost 1000…
sb admin | July 4, 2008The United Steelworkers, North America's largest private sector union with 1.2 million members, and Unite the Union, the largest labor organization in the United Kingdom and Ireland with 2 million members, signed an agreement to create the world's first global union called Workers Uniting. The announcement was made at the USW's 2008 Constitutional Convention.
In a video news release featuring USW Int'l President Leo W. Gerard and Unite the Union's General Secretary Derek Simpson, the two trade unionists describe the power of the two institutions coming together with a shared "vision of a…
sb admin | July 2, 2008The State of Rhode Island's efforts, which began in 1999, to force lead-paint manufacturers to clean-up contaminated homes received a mortal blow when the State's Supreme Court reversed a lower court's 2006 decision. (Full decision from 7/1/2008)  This early ruling was a result of the longest civil jury trial in Rhode Island history, with the decision going against the defendants Sherwin-Williams, NL Industries, and Millennium Holdings, holding them liable for creating a public nuisance by selling lead-based paint.Â
The R.I. Supreme Court said:
"We do not mean to minimize the severity…
revere | July 1, 2008As the tomato Salmonella outbreak heads past the 800 case level, it's time to ask some questions about why we don't know the source of what is the largest produce associated disease outbreak on record. CDC has its own explanation, namely, that figuring out where tomatoes come from and where they go is much harder than they thought. Said another way, the experts in foodborne disease outbreaks at CDC and FDA didn't know much about the industry. Since tomatoes have been a frequent cause of Salmonella outbreaks, that seems odd, except that my experience with CDC in recent years is that it is full…
sb admin | June 30, 2008In recent months, weâve learned about the Department of Defense hampering EPAâs chemical risk assessments and slowing the study of health effects from the TCE contaminating Camp Lejeune, North Carolina.
Now, the Washington Postâs Lyndsey Layton reports that DoD is refusing comply with EPA orders to clean up military bases where chemical contamination poses âimminent and substantialâ dangers to public health.
When EPA issues âfinal ordersâ to polluters, those that donât comply can be hauled into court and forced to pay fines of up to $28,000 per day for each violation. When the polluter in…
sb admin | June 24, 2008As weâve noted before, research on nanotechnology safety has lagged behind the use of nanomaterials in consumer products. Three recent stories describe the potential rewards and risks of nanotechnology and some of the efforts to learn more about nanomaterialsâ effects on humans and our environment.
Much of the use of nanotechnology in todayâs consumer products is of questionable value to society â the tiny particles are used to make tennis rackets more lightweight, skin cream more sheer, and socks less smelly. But nanomaterials also hold great promise for making solar cells and water…
sb admin | June 24, 2008By Michael Stebbins, originally published at Scientists and Engineers for America Action Fund
Last month I wrote about the White Houseâs apparent involvement in the denial of Californiaâs request for exemption from the Clean Air Act to set their own guidelines for the regulation of auto emissions standards. Now the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee has been forced to postpone a vote to hold EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson and Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs Administrator Susan Dudley in contempt for not turning over documents relating to the role of the White…
sb admin | June 23, 2008On Saturday, Firedoglake hosted an online discussion on David Michaelsâ Doubt is Their Product: How Industryâs Assault on Science Threatens Your Health â and David was lucky to have the chat hosted by Jordan Barab, whose wonderful Confined Space blog provided so much inspiration for The Pump Handle. In his introduction, Jordan not only did a terrific job summarizing the lessons contained in the book, but added some telling details from his own decades of experience promoting workplace health and safety. Here he is describing the demise of the long-awaited OSHA ergonomics standard:
I first…
sb admin | June 18, 2008Updated (6/19/08)Â below
Just before last year's holiday season, Charles Budds Bolchoz, 48; best friends Karey Renard Henry, 35, and Parish Lamar Ashley, 36; and company owner Robert Scott Gallagher, 49, lost their lives in a violent explosion at T2 Laboratories in Jacksonville, Florida (previous posts here, here). The firm manufacturered Ecotane®, a gasoline additive âmethylcyclopentadienyl manganese tricarbonylâ (i.e., MMT® or MCMT), which increases the octane rating of gasoline. Both OSHA and the CSB began their investigations, with CSB providing several updates in the early…
sb admin | June 17, 2008Back in April, a Government Accountability Office report explained how the White House Office of Management and Budget was holding up EPAâs IRIS (Integrated Risk Information System) assessments. OMB had started requiring an âinteragency reviewâ process allowing agencies that might be affected by the IRIS assessments to provide comments on the documents â and as result, some of these outside agencies can effectively block completion of IRIS assessments, which inform federal environmental standards and many environmental protection programs at the local, state, and even international level.
The…
sb admin | June 16, 2008by revere, cross posted at Effect Measure
Our post on what is behind the Right Wing attack on science drew a lot of attention and numerous comments. I'd like to emphasize some key points that may have gotten lost in the details (for the details, please see the original post). We'll use climate change skepticism as an example, but the principles hold for other kinds of assaults, for example, on public health concerns regarding bis phenol A.
The cardinal point is that the attacks aren't about science. Refuting false statements about whether CO2 is or is not a driver of global warming may seem (…