public health
cmonforton | August 23, 2013After more than 900 days of "review" by the White House's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA), OSHA announced it was publishing a proposed rule to protect workers who are exposed to respirable crystalline silica. It's a workplace hazard that causes the irreversible and progressive lung disease silicosis, and is also associated with lung cancer, autoimmune disorders and kidney disease. About 2.2 million workers are exposed to the fine dust in their jobs, many of which are employed in the construction industry. I've been writing here for about two years on the need for a…
kkrisberg | August 16, 2013In their efforts to protect the most vulnerable workers from illegal workplace practices and conditions, worker centers have now attracted the million-dollar ire of formidable anti-union forces. And while advocates say it's a sign of worker centers' success, it's still a worrisome trend that's made it all the way to the halls of Congress.
In late July, a full-page ad ran in the Wall Street Journal accusing worker centers of being fronts for labor unions. The ad was paid for by a group calling itself the Center for Union Facts, a nonprofit with a $3 million-plus budget run by industry lobbyist…
cmonforton | August 12, 2013More than 400 inspectors with the USDA's Food Safety Inspection Service (FSIS) worked, on average, more than 120 hours each two-week pay period. Those were the findings of the agency's Inspector General in an report issued late last month. Their investigation covered FY 2012, and included field work conducted from November 2012 through February 2013.
FSIS inspectors are assigned to more than 6,000 meat, poultry and egg processing plants in the U.S. They are responsible for ensuring that the product sold by companies to consumers is safe and wholesome. These firms process tens of…
kkrisberg | August 2, 2013Fair working standards for construction workers and financial profit for developers aren't incompatible, according to a new report from Texas' Workers Defense Project. In fact, consumers are actually willing to pay more to live in places built on principles of safety, economic justice and dignity.
Released this week in collaboration with the University of Texas' Center for Sustainable Development, "Green Jobs for Downtown Austin: Exploring the Consumer Market for Sustainable Buildings" studied consumer attitudes toward sustainable construction jobs and explored the market for certification…
kkrisberg | July 26, 2013With immigration at the forefront of national debate, Jim Stimpson decided it was time to do a little more digging.
"There's a lot of rhetoric around immigrants' use of public services in general and health care specifically, and I thought with impending federal immigration reform it would be useful to have some sort of contribution about the facts of unauthorized immigrants' use of health services in the United States," said Stimpson, a professor within the University of Nebraska's School of Public Health and director of the university's Center for Health Policy.
So together with colleagues…
kkrisberg | July 19, 2013When I asked Teresa Schnorr why we should be worried about the loss of a little-known occupational health data gathering program, she quoted a popular saying in the field of surveillance: "What gets counted, gets done."
Schnorr, who serves as director of the Division of Surveillance, Hazard Evaluations and Field Studies at CDC's National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), was referring to the Adult Blood Lead Epidemiology and Surveillance program (ABLES), a state-based effort that collects and analyzes data on adult lead exposure. For more than two decades, NIOSH has been…
cmonforton | July 16, 2013In its short history dating back to 1998, the U.S. Chemical Safety Board has conducted more than 100 investigations of industrial chemical explosions, unplanned toxic releases, spills and other incidents. Some of the disasters made the headlines, such as the 2005 explosion at the BP refinery in Texas City, TX which killed 15 workers, but others garnered much less public attention. Accompanying the CSB's investigation reports are detailed recommendations made to the companies involved, as well as trade associations, consensus standard-setting groups, unions, the US EPA and Occupational…
kkrisberg | July 12, 2013In a recent study comparing workers at industrial livestock operations and those employed at antibiotic-free livestock operations, researchers found that industrial workers were much more likely to carry livestock-associated strains of drug-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, more commonly and scarily known as MRSA.
First, it's important to note that both groups of workers had a similar prevalence of S. aureus and methicillin-resistant S. Aureus (MRSA); however, it was overwhelmingly workers at industrial livestock operations, sometimes known as concentrated animal feeding operations or CAFOs,…
kkrisberg | July 5, 2013Last year, reported cases of West Nile virus in the United States hit their highest levels in nearly a decade. It's a good reminder to keep protecting yourself from getting bitten, but it also begs the question: Is this just a sign of a much bigger threat? The answer is just as wily as the pesky mosquito.
According to recent data published June 28 in CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, the federal public health agency received reports of 5,780 nationally notifiable arboviral disease cases in 2012. (Arboviral diseases are those transmitted by arthropods, such as ticks and mosquitoes…
lborkowski | June 21, 2013by Kim Krisberg
When most of us pass by a new high-rise or drive down a new road, we rarely think: Did the builders and planners consider my health? However, a new report from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency offers evidence that certain types of land use and transportation decisions can indeed limit the human health and environmental impacts of development.
Released in mid-June, the publication is a revised and updated version of an EPA report initially published in 2001. Agency officials said the report was particularly timely as the nation's built environments are quickly changing…
tsmith | June 21, 2013Student guest post by Sean McCaul
Image Source: http://www.cejournal.net/?p=1934
The next time somebody in your office or household has the flu, you might want to consider keeping your distance. A new study published this month in Nature Communications suggests that about half of the transmission of influenza A results from inhalation of microscopic infectious droplets created by the coughing and sneezing of people infected with the flu. The flu virus hitches a ride in these droplets, and may infect nearby susceptible people who breathe them in.1
The influenza A virus generally causes…
tsmith | June 20, 2013Student guest post by Bradley Christensen
No, this isn’t a clip from a science fiction movie. Although dramatic, this does occur in the brains of some people and animals around on our home planet. What is a prion you ask? Prions are almost as mysterious to the scientists that research them as they are to me, you and the neighbor down the street. Prion is a term used to describe an abnormal and particularly destructive strand of protein found in the brain. Proteins are the building blocks of the muscles and tissues of our bodies that work combine together to perform different functions. …
tsmith | June 20, 2013Student guest post by Kyle Malter
In many areas of the country there is a vile blood sucker that lurks in our forests, our parks and even our backyards. What concerns us is not what this creature takes but rather what it leaves in our body after it bites us: corkscrew shaped bacteria called spirochetes and with the name Borrelia burgdorferi. When the bacteria invade our bodies and cause problems along the way we call it Lyme disease.
It is Lyme, not “Lymes” disease, and here’s how it got that name. In the early 1970’s a large number of cases emerged involving children with a “bulls-eye”…
tsmith | June 19, 2013Student guest post by Julia Wiederholt
I don’t think there is a single person that can claim to have never had the joyous experience (sarcasm intended) of suffering from the influenza. We all recognize the common symptoms that accompany this infectious little virus taking up residence in our bodies: the chills accompanying a fever, the total body ache, the nausea, and overall feeling of malaise. Typically this virus comes and goes within a week without serious side effects. When novel strains of the influenza pop up however, there can be more serious complications as your body lacks a…
tsmith | June 19, 2013Student guest post by Brandon Woods
A Dangerous Paradise
From jungles with jaguars to crystal blue lakes with freshwater sharks, Nicaragua is one of the most beautiful and dangerous countries in Central America. The brilliant biodiversity attracts millions of tourists each year and the looming volcanoes that pepper the landscape can be an exciting yet unsettling sight. However, in reality much of the danger in Nicaragua comes from the risk of infectious diseases. For example, if you’re planning to travel to this tropical paradise anytime soon, the Center for Disease Control (CDC) states that…
tsmith | June 18, 2013Student guest post by Carrie Ellsworth
During the summer of 2010 I spent two months in Ghana studying a parasite called schistosomiasis. We worked in a small town called Adasawase to determine prevalence and treat the schoolchildren who were infected. We were told that schistosomiasis was not a major health concern for the people in the town because they were often faced with other diseases that had more immediate and severe health consequences than a parasitic infection. It became apparent that if we wanted the people of this small town to take this health threat seriously, we needed to…
tsmith | June 18, 2013Student guest post by Molly Stafne
Nothing could be worse than watching your seven-year-old lying in a hospital bed fighting for his life after being diagnosed with hemolytic uremic syndrome. Unfortunately, Mary McGonigle-Martin experienced it first hand as her son, Chris, fought for his life after being poisoned by E. coli 0157:H7 found in contaminated raw milk. Like many mothers, Mary was coerced into believing the inaccurate “facts” given to her by the farm she purchased raw milk from. Too often across the US, parents are given incorrect information about the safety of the milk they drink…
tsmith | June 17, 2013Student guest post by Naomi Kirschenbaum
Although we can never know, there are estimates in the range of 15,000 displaced pets in the wake of 2005 Hurricane Katrina. Many of the dogs found their way to shelters and homes in our community around the Monterey Bay in California. As a local veterinarian the most notable observation I saw was how it “seemed” that so many were heartworm positive. Six years later we have a published study finding a 48.8% prevalence of heartworm in these dogs.
This story is an example of a few important lessons. First, how things seemed to me, in my clinical…
tsmith | June 17, 2013Student guest post by Jack Hamersky
After successfully completing a job interview I had the opportunity to take the next step in my employment process: taking a Tuberculosis or TB test. I have received the test before but never really understood the point of testing for a disease no one ever sees in my community. I always thought, “Why not focus all this effort and money on more prevalent infectious agents such as Ebola or HIV?” You know, focus on something important. So, as the nurse called me in from the waiting room I began to curse that hard little bubble that would soon be forming…
lborkowski | June 11, 2013by Kim Krisberg
It seems we barely go a week now without news of another violent gun incident. Last week's shooting rampage in Santa Monica, Calif., has resulted in the deaths of five people. And since the Newtown school shooting last December — in the span of less than six months — thousands of Americans have been killed by guns.
Just a couple days before the Santa Monica shooting, the Institute of Medicine (IoM) and National Research Council released a new report proposing priority research areas for better understanding gun-related violence, its causes, health effects and possible…