Occupational Health & Safety

Did Brush Wellman, the worldâs largest producer of beryllium products, hire Hill and Knowlton, the public relations giant behind Big Tobaccoâs campaign to fool the public about the hazards of smoking, to help Brush refute reports of berylliumâs toxicity? Brush says no, but we have the smoking guns -- memos and invoices -- that say otherwise. Keep reading for the details. Beryllium is a remarkable metal. It is stiffer than steel, lighter than aluminum, and causes lung disease at incredibly low levels of exposure. And it causes cancer in humans. This lightweight metal is has long been employed…
Update: 7/1 (4:00 pm): The link is fixed!  It was two reps of the National Association of Home Builders, four staff of OMB and one from the Dept of Labor's Solicitor's Office.  Hmmm...no one from OSHA attended the meeting.  On June 18 we reported here that OSHA had submitted to OMB's Office of Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) its proposed rule on crane safety.  Today, I noticed on OIRA's site that on June 26, someone met with OMB staff about OSHA's crane safety proposal, but the link is broken --- you get this message.  It's a mystery for now the names and affiliations of the participants.…
Earlier this month, William Scott Hill, 33, of Staffordsville, KY was killed while cutting trees to prepare for a surface coal mine for the Premier Elkhorn Coal Company (TECO Energy).  Mr. Hill was employed by Gopher Contracting of Jackson, KY.  His death on June 3 reminded me of other fatalities involving tree cutters working at mining operations, including Lawrence Payne, 32, who was killed in March 2004  and William S. Woods, 44, who was killed in December 2004.**   Just as I was reading about Mr. Hill's death, OSHA sent an advanced notice of proposed rulemaking on June 19 to OMB…
Remember the excellent Charlotte Observer series on poultry workers? If you missed it the first time, it's well worth a read. After a 22-month investigation, reporters conveyed a grim picture: poultry-plant workers suffer high rates of crippling injuries, but fear losing their jobs if they complain; companies cover up the problems, and OSHA lets them off easy. Tonight on PBS, Bill Moyers' Journal and Expose: America's Investigative Reports "go inside America's poultry industry, which employs almost a quarter million workers nationwide, to show the reality of working conditions and to…
Back in March, a Boston Globe article by Farah Stockman broke the news that workers whoâd been cleaning up the Qarmat Ali water injection plant in Iraq had been exposed to something that they were told was only a mild irritant â but which was, in fact, the dangerous substance sodium dichromate. After that report, Senator Byron Dorgan began investigating the situation, and chaired a Democratic Policy Committee hearing last week on the experiences of soldiers assigned to guard the plant. Stockman reports on the hearing testimony: "These soldiers were bleeding from the nose, spitting blood,"…
On 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…
Updated (6/19/08) 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…
Mr. Robert Carey, 45, an athracite coal miner from Shamokin, Pennsylvania was killed on Monday by falling rock/coal at the Harmony Mine.  So far this year, 26 workers at U.S. mining operations have died on-the-job.  Just this past Sunday, former MSHA chief J. Davitt McAteer had an Op-Ed in the Charleston Gazette entitled: "Enough: No More Mining Deaths."   He wrote: "It is time to stop killing our children, husbands, brothers and sons in the name of mining." The 26 deceased men were working at mining operations in the following states: Alabama (2), California (2), Indiana, Iowa,…
The New York Times reports this week that Charles M. Smith, the Army official responsible for overseeing the Pentagonâs multi-billion-dollar contract with KBR during the first two years after the Iraq invasion, says he was removed from his job for refusing to pay the company more than $1 billion in charges for which it lacked credible records. Army auditors had determined that KBR lacked credible data or records for more than $1 billion in spending, so Mr. Smith refused to sign off on the payments to the company. âThey had a gigantic amount of costs they couldnât justify,â he said in an…
Updated below ( 6/18/08 ) Earlier this month I wrote in "Crashing Cranes, Deaths and the White House's Edict" about the inexcusable inaction by the US Department of Labor and OSHA to address the decades-old problem of crane-related deaths.  I am not alone in my disgust at this regulatory system, which yet again is failing to protect our nation's workers.  I'm pleased to report that two parties familiar with an attempt at crane safety rulemaking have strongly expressed their own dissapointment with OSHA's failure to act.  First are members of the negotiated rulemaking committee (…
by revere Originally posted at Effect Measure  You know any post that starts out . . . Gerardo Castillo, 30 years old, had worked at the Blommer Chocolate Co. for 9 years. His family wanted him to quite ever since an explosion in a roaster killed a fellow worker and injured another. He was fearful himself, but he stayed on . . . is going to end badly. You'd be right. Continuing with our post . . . But on the weekend, something terrible happened at Blommer's four story factory on Chicago's Near West Side, after an unnamed substance was added to a batch of chocolate resulting in a chemical…
DuPont was busted a couple of years ago by U.S. EPA for failing to report information about adverse health effects associated with exposure to perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA or C8), the chemical used to make Teflon and other non-stick surfaces.  Now it seems that DuPont is dutifully submitting information to EPA's TSCA 8(e) docket and we can thank the Charleston Gazette's Ken Ward for trolling through the docket to find items of public interest.*  Ward recently reported on an analysis conducted by DuPont which identified 19 cases of carcinoid tumors among DuPont employees; 6 of the cases…
Last week James Delayo, New York Cityâs chief crane inspector, was arrested on the charge of taking bribes to let cranes pass inspection. According to officials, these accusations arenât directly related to the two deadly crane accidents that killed a total of nine people during the last three months. William K Rashbaum provides details in the New York Times: The charges against Mr. Delayo include third-degree bribe-receiving and first-degree tampering with public records, both felonies for which he could face up to seven years in prison. Among the charges was the accusation that he had…
OSHA's Assistant Secretary Edwin Foulke flopped and fumbled during CBS's 60 Minutes "Is Enough Done to Stop Explosive Dust?" which aired last night.  Correspondent Scott Pelley pressed Foulke to explain how the 50 OSHA inspectors who have been trained to identify combustible dust hazards will be able inspect the estimated 30,000 worksites with this dangerous volatile hazard. "We're not gonna get in every work site every year. It would be physically impossible from a monetary standpoint and on a personnel standpoint to get in every facility once a year. Or even every five years." Foulke said…
Do you know of any cases of Parkinson's disease among workers at flavoring companies?   David Egilman, MD, Clinical Associate Professor, Brown University, is aware of two cases of Parkinson's disease in men in their fifties who were flavorists at a large flavorings company.  The plant alone had 15 "flavorists."  (The average age of onset for Parkinson's is 60 and it is a relatively rare disease.)  Dr. Egilman is making an appeal to see if others are aware of a possible disease-exposure relationship.  As Pump Handle readers know, workers are typically the canaries for the rest…
Set your wristwatch alarms or your VCR for this Sunday (June 7) at 7:00 pm (EST) to watch CBS's 60 Minutes and a hard-hitting story on OSHA and its failure to protect workers and communities from combustible dust explosions.  CBS's correspondent Scott Pelley  interviews Carolyn Merritt (former Member of the US Chemical Safety Board), Tammy Miser (whose brother Shawn was killed in an aluminum dust explosion), Edwin Foulke (OSHA Asst. Secretary), and at least one EXPERIENCED but UNDISCLOSED speaker.   Many thanks to the CBS crew who pursued and persisted with this story: David…
The human rights group Amnesty International has released a report criticizing forced labor and dangerous working conditions in Brazilâs sugar cane industry, which feeds the countryâs booming ethanol industry. Eduardo Simoes and Inae Riveras report for Reuters (via Gristmill): Amnesty said that in March 2007, 288 workers were rescued from forced labor at six cane plantations in Sao Paulo state, and 409 workers from an ethanol distillery in Mato Grosso do Sul state. In November 2007, inspection teams found 831 indigenous cane cutters working in poor conditions, also in Mato Grosso do Sul,…
The 65 or so high school seniors of Tygarts Valley High School shared a moment of silence during their graduation ceremony last night (The InterMountain reports) to mourn the death of Adam Lanham, 18, who died on Friday, May 30 at ICG's Sentinel Mine.  The young coal miner was a 2007 graduate of Tygarts Valley High School, and reportedly was pinched between the mine rib and a coal scoop. News reports (here) state that the "red hat" (apprentice) miners' father and two brothers also worked at the Sentinel Mine.  ICG's website makes no mention of the young man's death.  The company says: "…
On Friday, May 30 it was a crane collapse in NYC where Donald Leo, 30, and Ramadan Kurtaj, 27 were killed and Simeon Alexis, 32, was seriously injured.  On Saturday, May 31 it was a crane collapse at the Wyoming Black Thunder mine which seriously injured ironworkers Andrew Milonis and Frederico Salinas.  These incidents are in the wake of the mid-March New York collapse which killed six workers: Wayne Bleidner, 51; Brad Cohen, 54; Clifford Canzona, 45; Aaron Stephens, 45; Anthony Mazza, 39; Santino Gallone, 37; and Ms. Odin Torres, 28, a visitor from Miami.  And there have been many…
For Memorial Day, news stories highlighted the importance of hearing, remembering, and responding to the stories of those whoâve served our country. The San Diego Union-Tribune profiled âfour seemingly ordinary people who led extraordinary livesâ in past wars; in the Washington Post, Edward G. Lengel suggests that a failure to listen to World War I veterans signaled an unwillingness to hear horrific tales. In the New York Times op-ed section and Outposts blog, respectively, Helen Benedict urges us not to overlook the nearly one-third of female veterans who say theyâve been sexually assaulted…