Occup Health News Roundup
lborkowski | February 7, 2011Researchers from the University of Maryland School of Nursing and the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine examined data from 71 Illinois and North Carolina hospitals and found that "patient deaths from pneumonia and acute myocardial infarction were significantly more likely in hospitals where nurses reported schedules with long work hours," reports Laura Walter in EHS Today. (The study itself appears in the January/February issue of Nursing Research.)
During nursing shortages in the 1980s, many hospitals switched nurses from 8-hour shifts to 12-hour shifts, and the pattern has…
lborkowski | January 24, 2011On April 5, 2010, a massive explosion at Massey Energy's Upper Big Branch Mine in Montcoal, West Virginia, killed 29 miners. Last week, federal Mine Safety and Health Administration investigators briefed victims' relatives on what MSHA thinks happened at the mine. (MSHA's official final report is not expected for another 2-3 months, though.) NPR's Howard Berkes reports that the investigators' presentation "pointed to a tragedy that could have been prevented if the Upper Big Branch coal mine had complied with federal safety regulations."
In a related piece, Berkes explains some of the safety…
lborkowski | December 22, 2010Earlier this month, a bill that would have provided medical benefits and compensation for 9/11 first responders passed the House but couldn't overcome a Republican filibuster. (Remember the old days of majority rule in the Senate, when 51 votes was enough to pass most legislation? We're in a different era now.)
Senators Kirsten Gillibrand and Charles Schumer of New York have now made alterations to the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act and hope it will now be able to attract enough Republican votes. The overall cost of the bill has dropped from $7.4 billion to $6.2 billion as a…
lborkowski | December 2, 2010Mary Kay Magistad of PRI's The World surveys the cost of China's huge appetite for coal and reports that it's harmful to workers as well as air quality. She interviews 37-year-old coal miner Zhong Guangwei, who developed a severe case of pneumoconiosis, or black lung disease, after just 10 months of working in a coal mine in the Shanxi province.
"Down in the mine, the coal dust was so thick, we couldn't even see people who were four or five feet away," Zhong says. "We had to just shout out to each other, to see who was around. There were no safety precautions, and the ventilation was terrible…