NIOSH
cmonforton | April 23, 2013The funeral services are beginning this week for the 10 volunteer firefighters and the five other individuals who were fatally injured by the horrific explosion at West Fertilizer. The initial call about the fire at the plant was made to the West Volunteer fire department at 8:30 pm. The explosion occurred 21 minutes later. The Dallas Morning News is reporting that the firefighters knew the plant stored chemicals used in explosives, "but whether that knowledge factored into the attempts to put out the fatal blaze near the plant remained unclear." The Texas State Fire Marshall's Office…
lborkowski | October 30, 2012As Sandy's high winds and water subside, many of us are feeling profoundly grateful to the emergency responders who've been putting themselves in harm's way to keep the rest of us safe. Although their jobs by definition involve working in hazardous situations, there's a lot their agencies and incident commanders can do to protect response workers. Earlier this year, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health released the Emergency Responder Health Monitoring and Surveillance (ERHMS) system, which provides guidelines for protecting emergency responders in a wide variety of…
cmonforton | September 17, 2012When the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act (P.L. 111-347) was signed into law in January 2011, among its aims was providing screening and medical treatment for the fire fighters, police officers, emergency responders and certain other survivors. More than $4 billion was authorized by Congress for the program. The adverse health conditions covered by the program for eligible participants were limited primarily to respiratory and mental health disorders. The list included the conditions that the responders and survivors were already suffering due to exposures at the World Trade…
egrossman | July 23, 2012by Elizabeth Grossman
When the National Institute of Occupational Health and Safety (NIOSH) found exposure levels of respirable silica at hydraulic fracturing (fracking) operations that were 10, 25, and 100 times greater than federal recommended safety limits, NIOSH was confident enough about these findings to present them at a national Institute of Medicine forum and to publish them on its website. These findings also formed the basis of a hazard alert issued jointly by NIOSH and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). But as I reported previously on The Pump Handle, NIOSH…
lborkowski | July 6, 2012By Anthony Robbins
On 19 June, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health and other Federal agencies and private sector groups concerned with worker health convened a two-day workshop at the Department of Labor’s Frances Perkins Building in Washington. About 100 researchers gathered to discuss how workers compensation data could be analyzed and used to study worker safety and health. NIOSH asked me to moderate the first session. I was flattered, but for all my roles in public health since leaving NIOSH’s directorship in 1981, I was surely not an expert in workers’ compensation…
egrossman | June 22, 2012by Elizabeth Grossman
In response to results of the recently released National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) field studies that found workers at hydraulic fracturing operations exposed to high levels of respirable crystalline silica, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and NIOSH have issued a Hazard Alert. The alert outlines the health hazards associated with hydraulic fracturing and focuses specifically on exposures to airborne silica, saying that “employers must ensure that workers are properly protected from overexposure to silica.” It also…
cmonforton | June 19, 2012Researchers with the CDC's National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) report in the current issue of Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (Vol. 16, No. 23) on the prevalence of dust diseases of the lungs among U.S. surface coal miners. Based on chest x-rays performed on 2,238 workers who work at surface/strip coal mines in 16 States, 46 of them (about 2 percent) had radiographic evidence of coal workers' pneumoconiosis (CWP). The median age of the workers with CWP was only 56 years; the median years of mining experience was 33 years. Especially troubling is the…
lborkowski | March 27, 2012Earlier this month, the Mine Safety and Health Administration released results of an internal review into the agency's actions leading up to the April 5, 2010 Upper Big Branch Mine Disaster, which killed 29 miners in Raleigh County, West Virginia. The Executive Summary reports, "While the Internal Review team did not find evidence that the actions of District 4 personnel or inadequacies in MSHA safety and health standards, policies, or procedures caused the explosion, the team found several instances where enforcement efforts at UBB were compromised because MSHA and District 4 did not follow…
cmonforton | March 5, 2012The Center for Public integrity's Jim Morris was the first to report that two long awaited cancer mortality studies of US workers exposed to diesel exhaust finds significantly elevated levels of lung cancer. Researchers with the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and CDC's National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) proposed the studies two decades ago, going great lengths to address methodological limitations identified in previous epidemiological studies of diesel exhaust-exposed workers. The bottom line, and with now stronger evidence than ever, there should be no question…
cmonforton | December 15, 2011Just before 8:00 pm local time, a powerful burst of rock exploded in an area where at least 20 miners were working in the Lucky Friday mine. All the miners escaped to safety but several remain hospitalized. This silver mine in the Coeur d'Alene region has been the site of numerous serious incidents this year, including two fatalities. The first on April 15, 2011, a cave-in at 6,000 feet that took the life of Larry "Pete" Marek, 53. The second, the November 17, 2011 incident that took the life of 26 year old Brandon Gray. Relevant to yesterday's catastrophic event, the mine operator…
cmonforton | October 19, 2011It's too late for Ronald Martin of Dema, Kentucky. "I'm in last stage of black lung," he wrote in shaky script, "please help the miners so they won't suffer like I suffer. I can't breathe but a little." Mr. Martin sent his note to the Labor Department's Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) to comment on the agency's proposed rule to reduce workers' exposure to respirable coal mine dust---the dust that damaged his lungs so severely. Other coal miners also sent their comments to MSHA, urging the agency to put a more protective regulation in place as soon as possible to prevent…
cmonforton | August 15, 2011The Republican chairmen of the House Education and the Workforce Committee and its Subcommittee on Workforce Protections are invoking "sound science" and "transparency" in a request to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) for data and draft publications of a cancer mortality study of underground miners exposed to diesel exhaust. Congressman John Kline (R-MN) and Tim Walberg (R-MI) wrote to NIOSH director John Howard onJuly 8, suggesting that the agency is violating a 2001 federal court order. That order stemmed from a lawsuit filed more than 15 years ago by the…