Legal
sb admin | July 31, 2009It's long past time to breathe some fresh air into the Department of Labor's Solicitor's Office (SOL). I was hopeful when President Obama nominated M. Patricia Smith in April to serve as the Solicitor of Labor, but since her May 7 confirmation hearing, her appointment is languishing in the Senate HELP committee. The Solicitor's Office has about 600 employees, many of whom are attorneys working in regional offices across the country, and they are supposed to help DOL agencies accomplish their missions by providing legal advice. The mission statement includes, ensuring that the
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emjohnson | July 22, 2009Earlier this week a classified Scientology contract was leaked (full pdf document here), revealing the paranoid nature of the Church. The document is entitled Application, Declaration and General Release Declaration of Religious Commitment and Application for Membership in a Scientology Religious Order and for Active Participation on Church Staff. This contract must be signed by anyone who wishes to engage in "active participation as a staff member within the Church of Scientology" as a Class V Org member.
Among the items they must agree to are:
8. I am not related to or connected with any…
sb admin | March 5, 2009Last fall, we warned that a Supreme Court decision on medical device companies' liability would remove a powerful incentive for device manufacturers to ensure their products' safety. In that case, Riegel v. Medtronic, the Court ruled that as long as devices are FDA-approved, consumers injured by the devices can't sue the manufacturers for liability in state courts - in short, FDA approval preempted those lawsuits. This wouldn't be such a problem if FDA weren't such a woefully under-resourced agency.
We feared that the Court might again rule in manufacturers' favor in a similar case, this one…
sb admin | March 4, 2009Or is it: what wouldn't we know without investigative journalist Andrew Schneider??? Would the town Libby, Montana mean anything? How about the words Zonolite, Diacetyl, or GRAS?  These terms and places are familiar because of Andy Schneider, the Pulitzer Prize (and other) award winning reporter, who's an integral part of our public health community. Schneider's worked recently for papers in Seattle, St. Louis, Baltimore and back to Seattle, but no matter where his feet land, stellar investigations follow.        Â
Right now, it appears that Schneider is staked out…
sb admin | March 2, 2009Cross-posted from Sustained Outrage: a Gazette Watchdog Blog Â
by Ken Ward, Jr.
Bayer CropScience hasnât said yet if it will challenge $143,000 in fines issued by the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration for 13 serious and 2 repeat violations related to the August 2008 explosion and fire that killed two Institute plant workers. But a vigorous court fight seems likely, given who Bayer has hired as its lawyer in the matter.Â
Robert C. Gombar is well known for his efforts to help companies that butt heads with OSHA over allegations that they werenât complying with workplace…
sb admin | December 17, 2008In late November, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit heard oral arguments on the two petitions for review of OSHA's health standard on hexavalent chromium (CrVI).  The transcript of the proceeding (52-page PDF) reveal that these judges did their homework. They knew the history and content of the final rule.  I was heartened to read one judge interrupt the Labor Department attorney with:
"Well, one thing that concerns me [about this final rule] is the requirement for notifying employees at the action level of the risk. And I'm not certain why…
sb admin | November 7, 2008by Bob Snashall, retired Labor Dept employee (Op-Ed Charleston Gazette, Nov 7, 2008)
George W. Bush & Company did one thing well - it bagged a lot of public information and taxidermied it into secrets. The shroud of secrecy even spread over mine safety. Mine safety? The law envisions everybody chipping in to protect miners from the perils of fire, water, gas and roof falls. So it helps the public to know what is going on. My federal legal career spanning 30 years embraced both mine safety and freedom of information.
In a democracy - you know, in a government of, by and for the…
sb admin | November 3, 2008On the eve of the election, The Nation reminds us that the next president will play a crucial role in determining the makeup of the Supreme Court. Herman Schwartz describes the Court's current makeup and rattles off current rulings that would be threatened by the appointment of another conserviative justice. Then, other contributors explain how the Court has shaped the legal landscape on workers' rights, healthcare, and consumer safety.
Eric Schnapper, a law professor at the University of Washington School of Law, looks at Supreme Court decisions that he says allow employers to violate…
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…
sb admin | June 12, 2008Todayâs Washington Post includes a great article by Lyndsey Layton that contrasts European Union and U.S. chemical laws and explores how EU actions might affect products on U.S. shelves. Hereâs Laytonâs explanation of EU law and the philosophy that guides it:
From its crackdown on antitrust practices in the computer industry to its rigorous protection of consumer privacy, the European Union has adopted a regulatory philosophy that emphasizes the consumer. Its approach to managing chemical risks, which started with a trickle of individual bans and has swelled into a wave, is part of a European…
sb admin | April 4, 2008No, not V-8 the vegetable drink, but C8, the common name for ammonium perfluorooctanoate, an ingredient in Teflon and other non-stick products. Ken Ward of the Charleston Gazette reports today on the levels of perfluorooctanoic acid in the blood of about 69,000 residents living near the DuPont Co.'s Parkersburg, WV plant where C8 was manufactured. The results are posted on the West Virginia University's Health Science's center website.  The median C8 blood-level was
"more than five times the U.S. general population."
The highest median blood-concentration levels (i.e., 132 ppb…
sb admin | December 4, 2007by Susan F. Wood, PhDÂ
It's not often, if ever, that an FDA sponsored report calls out for more resources, more direct action and organizational change for FDA. The recently released report (PDF) by the Subcommittee on Science and Technology for the FDA Science Board does just that. Although I wouldn't necessary agree with all of the recommendations, and would call out for a few more, the report identifies some of the real needs at FDA for strengthened science. The FDA Science Board, an Advisory Committee to the FDA, has issued earlier reports, but none with the timeliness and…
sb admin | November 27, 2007By David EgilmanÂ
Jack Kevorkian was tried several times for second degree murder for assisting at suicide. He was finally convicted of second degree murder for one such "assist." The state never asserted that the person who was killed was uninformed or had not participated in the decision to hire Kevorkian to assist in their own death. Patients knew of the risk they were taking when they contacted Dr. Kevorkian to help them kill themselves.
All over American and the world millions of people are "choosing to smoke." Cigarettes kill half of all smokers.  Most of these people begin…
sb admin | September 17, 2007by Liz BorkowskiÂ
Bush appointees and polluting industries may oppose statesâ attempts to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, but courts have been ruling in statesâ favor. In April, the Supreme Court found that EPA, contrary to its insistence, does in fact have the authority to regulate carbon dioxide emissions. Last week, a federal judge upheld a Vermont law establishing reduced greenhouse gas emission standards for new cars sold in that state.
Like the Supreme Court justices, U.S. District Judge William Sessions found that state efforts to regulate greenhouse gas emissions are perfectly in…
sb admin | September 6, 2007Â By Susan F. Wood, PhDÂ
In an article in the New England Journal of Medicine today, Sheila Weiss Smith points out that the FDA has not been responsive to the Institute of Medicine (IOM) report on Drug Safety. That study and its recommendations took on the question of how to improve our nation's drug safety system, specifically through regulation by FDA. In her Perspective article, Dr. Smith writes:
In general, the IOM implored the agency to "embrace a culture of safety" by increasing the priority accorded to the safety of patients. Such an emphasis could have ramifications for medical…
sb admin | August 9, 2007Jeff Lehr at the Joplin Globe reports that a new round of lawsuits has been filed against makers of an artificial butter flavoring used at a microwave popcorn plant in Jasper County, Missouri. Exposure to artificial butter flavoring â in particular, the chemical diacetyl â has been linked to severe obstructive lung disease, and the 44 plaintiffs in the two latest lawsuits allege that exposure to butter flavoring caused severe impairment of their lungs. Lehr explains:
The lawsuits represent a second round of legal action against International Flavors and Fragrances Inc., and Bush Boake Allen,…
sb admin | June 28, 2007My colleague Celeste Monforton has just posted a new case study at DefendingScience.org, and itâs worth a read for anyone interested in industry attempts to bury information about productsâ potential harmful effects.
The American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists (ACGIH) is a private, not-for-profit, professional organization for practitioners in the field of workplace and environmental health and safety. Since 1946, ACGIH committees have studied substances to which workers are exposed and recommended Threshold Limit Values (TLVs), which are akin to exposure limits.
The reason…
sb admin | June 18, 2007Federal Judge Robert C. Chambers, US District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia, ruled in favor of environmental groups in their claim against coal mine operators and practices related to mountaintop removal mining.* This form of surface mining involves blasting off the top of mountains, scooping out the coal, and dumping the unwanted rock and soil into the valley. This waste material often chokes off streams and causes other damage to the communities and the environment in the down-below valleys. The West Virginia Highlands Conservancy, Coal River Mountain Watch, and…
sb admin | May 22, 2007The public (that's you) have until May 24 to comments on EPA's list of nominees for its Science Advisory Board panel on asbestos. David Michaels has weighed in on this issue  and is submitting his comments today to EPA. Another organization providing input is the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). Writing on behalf of NRDC, senior scientist Jennifer Sass writes: Â
On the whole, industry-employed scientists and scientists working for industry-supported research institutions tend to downplay the effects of toxic chemicals. ...Here, many, if not most of the industry nominees…
sb admin | May 20, 2007"That mine scared me to death," is the headline for the Charleston Gazette's story by stellar reporter Ken Ward. He relays the experience of MSHA inspector, Minness Justice, who was responsible for inspecting A.T. Massey's Aracoma Alma No. 1 mine in the three month's preceding the coal mine fire on January 19, 2006, which killed miners Don Bragg, 33 and Ellery Hatfield, 46. The inspector admits he didn't see a missing ventilation wall which likely would have prevented some of the smoke from the conveyor belt fire from penetrating into the miners' escapeway. Ward's interview reveals…