public health
kkrisberg | March 21, 2017At the Sacramento Bee, Ryan Lillis and Jose Luis Villegas report on the effects that Trump’s immigration crackdown is having on California farms, writing that fear of deportation is spreading throughout the state’s farming communities. While many farmworkers believe immigration raids are inevitable, farm operators, many who voted for Trump, hope the president will bring more water to the region and keep immigration officials off their fields. Lillis and Villegas write:
Fear is everywhere. The night before, the local school board became one of the first in California to declare its campuses a…
kkrisberg | March 15, 2017As the Republicans push forward their abysmal Affordable Care Act replacement, much of the talk surrounding its impact focuses on insurance numbers and premium hikes. Those things are certainly important. But this is more important: The Republican plan will cause unnecessary suffering and preventable death.
How do we know this? Let’s start with the Congressional Budget Office report that scored the Republican replacement plan, titled the American Health Care Act. That report estimates that if the Republican plan is enacted, 14 million more people would be uninsured by 2018 than would have…
kkrisberg | March 10, 2017Another day, another study that shows soda taxes work to reduce the consumption of beverages associated with costly chronic diseases in children and adults.
This time it’s a study on Mexico’s sugar-sweetened beverage tax, which went into effect at the start of 2014 and tacked on 1 peso per liter of sugary drink. Published this month in the journal Health Affairs, the study found that purchases of sugary drinks subject to the new tax went down more than 5 percent in 2014 and nearly 10 percent in 2015. At the same time, purchases of untaxed drinks went up by slightly more than 2 percent. The…
kkrisberg | March 8, 2017At the Atlantic Monthly, Alana Semuels interviews David Weil, who served as administrator of the Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division under President Obama, on his time at DOL and the future of labor under Trump.
On Obama’s effect, Weil told Semuels:
Semuels: What specifically changed in the Department of Labor under Obama?
Weil: One of the things Obama did from the beginning was to fight hard to get resources for his enforcement agencies. He came in and the number of investigators in the Wage and Hour Division was barely 700 nationally—and it is responsible for 7.3 million workplaces…
kkrisberg | March 3, 2017Most news on the dangers of antibiotic-resistant infections focus on adults. But children are very much at risk too. In fact, a recent study found that U.S. children have experienced a 700 percent surge in infections caused by particular bacteria that’s both resistant to multiple antibiotics and responsible for growing numbers of serious bacterial infections in kids.
“These organisms are scary, they’re hard to treat and respond to few antibiotics…and it’s the type of antibiotic resistance that’s capable of spreading itself to adjacent bacteria even if those bacteria haven’t been exposed to…
kkrisberg | March 1, 2017In 2015, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency released a report finding 457 fracking-related spills in eight states between 2006 and 2012. Last month, a new study tallied more than 6,600 fracking spills in just four states between 2005 and 2014. But, as usual, the numbers only tell part of the story.
Not every spill counted in that new number represents a spill of potentially harmful materials or even a spill that made contact with the environment. In fact, the study’s goal wasn’t to tally an absolute number of fracking spills. Instead, researchers set out to collect available spill data…
kkrisberg | February 24, 2017Earlier this month, news broke of a study that found potentially health-harming chemicals in a variety of fast food packaging. Upon hearing such news, the natural inclination is to worry that you’re ingesting those chemicals along with your burger and fries. Study researcher Graham Peaslee says that’s certainly a risk. But perhaps the greater risk, he says, happens after that hamburger wrapper ends up in landfill and the chemicals seep into our environment and water.
The chemicals in question are per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs), which are used to make consumer products nonstick,…
kkrisberg | February 21, 2017At Reveal, Jennifer Gollan reports on how the Navy and other federal agencies give lucrative contracts to shipbuilders with troublesome worker safety records. In fact, Gollan reports that since 2008, the Navy and Coast Guard’s seven major shipbuilders have received more than $100 billion in public funds despite serious — and sometimes fatal — safety gaps. She noted that in his first days in office, President Trump announced plans for a massive Navy fleet expansion, which could mean even more workers will be at risk.
Gollan writes:
With extra business comes more risks for workers. But there is…
kkrisberg | February 17, 2017The anti-vaxxers were out again this week, spreading misinformation and debunked science about an intervention that’s saved millions of lives and prevented immeasurable human suffering. It’s unconscionable.
That person is Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who — to repeat — is not a doctor, not a scientist, not a public health practitioner, not an expert in vaccinology. Regardless, he told the press earlier this year that President Trump had asked him to chair a vaccine safety commission, even though the country already has one of those — it’s called the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices and…
kkrisberg | February 14, 2017Fewer economic opportunities may be exposing black and Hispanic workers to an increased risk of workplace injury, according to a new study.
Published this month in Health Affairs, the study set out to document differences in the risk of occupational injury and in the prevalence of work-related disabilities between white and minority workers. Researchers found that even after adjusting for variables such as education, sex and age, black and foreign-born Hispanic workers often worked in jobs with the highest injury risks and thus, experienced higher rates of work-related disabilities as well.…
kkrisberg | February 7, 2017At the American Prospect, Justin Miller interviews Obama-era Labor Department officials on the future of worker protections under President Trump. Miller takes a behind-the-scenes peek at what it took to pass some of the Obama administration’s key labor rules, discusses the nomination of Andy Puzder to become the nation’s next labor secretary, and addresses rumors that the new administration might be gunning to abolish some Labor Department divisions entirely. Miller writes:
Not surprisingly, Obama’s top labor alums express pride in the many worker protections they were able to put in place…
kkrisberg | February 7, 2017Not violating federal labor law seems like a commonsense precursor for being awarded lucrative federal contracts. House Republicans, however, disagree.
Last week, majority members in the House of Representatives successfully passed a resolution to get rid of federal disclosure requirements included in President Barack Obama’s Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces Executive Order, which he originally signed in 2014. Those disclosure requirements directed businesses bidding for federal contracts of $500,000 or more to report any violations of 14 labor laws within the prior three years. Among those 14…
kkrisberg | January 27, 2017
We’re just a humble little public health blog. But we can still do our part. If you or someone you know need help getting health insurance coverage before next week’s enrollment deadline on Jan. 31, here are some good resources.
First, why do this? Because this week, the Trump administration abruptly canceled advertising and outreach scheduled to run during this final week of Affordable Care Act enrollment. Apparently, he even pulled ads that were already paid for. But, you can still enroll. According to Paul Demko at Politico:
(The Trump administration) is also halting all media outreach…
kkrisberg | January 24, 2017Can I afford the water that comes out of my tap? It’s not a question that Americans typically ask themselves. However, a new study finds that in the next few years, many more of us might be asking that very question as we open our utility bills and realize that we’re merely accustomed to affordable water — we don’t have a guaranteed right to it.
While a good amount of research on water affordability has been conducted in the developing world, the issue has received much less attention in developed nations such as the United States. Elizabeth Mack, an assistant professor in the Michigan State…
kkrisberg | January 17, 2017At The New York Times, Jodi Kantor and Jennifer Medina report on Trump’s pick to head up the U.S. Department of Labor, fast food CEO Andrew Puzder, an outspoken critic of labor laws that benefit hourly workers.
Puzder is expected to face tough questioning during his confirmation hearings, especially as his company’s restaurants have been accused of multiple labor law violations. The article explores Puzder’s entry into the fast food world, his work as a lawyer, and interviews current and former workers at one of the chains that Puzder runs, Carl’s Jr. Kantor and Medina write:
In interviews…
kkrisberg | January 10, 2017Because taking health insurance away from millions of Americans isn’t bad enough, President-elect Trump has reportedly asked an outspoken critic of vaccines — a man who supported the thoroughly debunked notion that vaccines are linked to autism — to lead a commission on vaccine safety.
That man is Robert Kennedy Jr., who in 2005 wrote a “expose” published in Salon and Rolling Stone arguing that thimerosal, a preservative in vaccines, is tied to autism. Salon retracted the article after critics “further eroded any faith we had in the story’s value.” Rolling Stone dumped the story too. More…
lborkowski | January 2, 2017The Pump Handle is on a holiday break. The following, which was originally published on Jan. 29, is one of our favorite posts from 2016.
by Kim Krisberg
In the midst of another national debate over gun safety regulations, some argue that higher rates of gun ownership will protect people from dangerous strangers with deadly intentions. Physician and public health researcher Michael Siegel set out to study that argument. He ultimately found no relationship between gun ownership and stranger-related firearm homicides. But he did find that gun ownership levels translated into higher homicide…
lborkowski | December 30, 2016The Pump Handle is on a holiday break. The following, which was originally published on May 23, is one of our favorite posts from 2016.
by Kim Krisberg
Last summer, 25-year-old Roendy Granillo died of heat stroke while he installed flooring in a house in Melissa, Texas, just north of Dallas. His tragic and entirely preventable death marked a turning point in advocacy efforts to pass a rest break ordinance for local construction workers.
About five months after Granillo’s death, the Dallas City Council voted 10-5 to approve such an ordinance, which requires that construction workers be given a…
lborkowski | December 28, 2016The Pump Handle is on a holiday break. The following, which was originally published on July 8, is one of our favorite posts from 2016.
by Kim Krisberg
In 2005, the World Health Assembly adopted a revised version of its International Health Regulations, a legally binding treaty among 196 nations to boost global health security and strengthen the world’s capacity to confront serious disease threats such as Ebola and SARS. A decade later, just one-third of countries have the ability to respond to a public health emergency. That’s why Rebecca Katz thinks it’s time to get creative.
“How can we…
kkrisberg | December 22, 2016As 2016 comes to a close — and 2017 looms with enormous uncertainty — let’s end the year with some encouraging public health news. This time it’s a study on one of the 10 great public health achievements of the 20th century: fluoridation.
Published this month in Health Affairs, the study is an update on a 2001 study that marked the most comprehensive examination to date of community water fluoridation benefits and costs. This new study found that in 2013, more than 211 million American residents had access to fluoridated drinking water. That fluoridation was associated with the prevention of…