regulation
sb admin | July 1, 2008Update: 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.Â
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.…
revere | July 1, 2008As the tomato Salmonella outbreak heads past the 800 case level, it's time to ask some questions about why we don't know the source of what is the largest produce associated disease outbreak on record. CDC has its own explanation, namely, that figuring out where tomatoes come from and where they go is much harder than they thought. Said another way, the experts in foodborne disease outbreaks at CDC and FDA didn't know much about the industry. Since tomatoes have been a frequent cause of Salmonella outbreaks, that seems odd, except that my experience with CDC in recent years is that it is full…
sb admin | June 27, 2008Earlier 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.** Â
Just as I was reading about Mr. Hill's death, OSHA sent an advanced notice of proposed rulemaking on June 19 to OMB…
sb admin | June 23, 2008On 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…
sb admin | June 18, 2008Updated (6/19/08)Â 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…
sb admin | June 18, 2008Mr. 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,…
sb admin | June 16, 2008Updated 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 (…
revere | June 13, 2008If you want to see what difference environmental protection enforcement makes, just go to eastern Europe or the former Soviet Union. Or China. In the 1970s the US led the world in cleaning its environment and was consolidating its gains with well-staffed, motivated federal and state environment agencies. But that was then. Last weekend the US Senate couldn't even manage a paltry 60 votes to stop a filibuster of a bipartisan and none too strong global warming bill. This kind of failure isn't new. The US slow motion fall in environmental leadership has been going on for decades. In the Bush…
revere | June 11, 2008You 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 reaction that produced ammonia or an ammonia-…
sb admin | June 9, 2008An attorney representing a large group of PFOA-exposed individuals sent a letter to EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson and ATSDR Director Howard Frumkin, urging them not to delay any further the release of hazard information and risk assessments on the contaminant perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA, a.k.a. C8). Mr. Bilott was writing on behalf of residents who live near DuPont's Washington Works plant near Parkersburg, WV andÂ
"who continue to be exposed to this poison in their residential drinking water on a daily basis."  Â
In a 2005 legal settlement with the residents, DuPont agreed…
sb admin | June 9, 2008OSHA'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…
revere | June 9, 2008Last fall the animal slaughter giant Tyson Foods, Inc. was selling chickens with a USDA approved label, "raised without antibiotics." Some people thought that was a bit misleading insofar as Tyson routinely used ionophores in their feed designed to prevent a fungal disease in the birds. The USDA classes ionophores as antibiotics. The agency had "overlooked" the additive and when it was forcefully brought to their attention, they asked Tyson to add words to their label indicating it used no antibiotics that could cause antibiotic resistance in humans. Tyson added the words in December but…
sb admin | June 5, 2008Do you know of any cases of Parkinson's disease among workers at flavoring companies? Â
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…
sb admin | June 5, 2008Set 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. Â
Many thanks to the CBS crew who pursued and persisted with this story: David…
sb admin | June 4, 2008By Susan F. Wood, PhD
Much has been written at the Pump Handle and elsewhere in the media and scientific literature about ensuring that science appropriately drives government policies. Questions and concerns have abounded regarding inappropriate non-scientific interference, while at the same time many health and environmental agencies (and the scientific staff within them) continue their incredibly important work in research, evaluation, development, regulation and service delivery. Several organizations have done surveys and developed principles on scientific integrity including the…
sb admin | June 3, 2008For the first time since 2005, the full Senate chamber is debating climate legislation: the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act, or CSA. Although the chances of this legislation becoming law this year are slim, it could lay important groundwork for the next Congress and Administration.
If you want to know the key details about what the CSA proposes and what the remaining sticking points are, go read this excellent Gristmill post by Kate Sheppard â and donât seek your information from todayâs New York Times. As the title suggests, John M. Broderâs NYT article âSenate Opens Debate on…
sb admin | June 3, 2008The 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.Â
ICG's website makes no mention of the young man's death. The company says:
"…
sb admin | June 2, 2008On 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…
sb admin | May 29, 2008by Susan F. Wood, PhD
Last year, Congress passed new legislation on the Food and Drug Administration, known as the FDA Amendments Act (FDAAA) of 2007.This legislation, while limited, made some significant steps forward, see here and here. It reauthorizes the user fee systems for drugs, biologics and medical devices, and expands FDAâs authority on labeling, requires new transparency for the Agency and establishes broader registries of clinical trials and requires results from clinical trials to be released to the public The public concern over the handling of medications like Vioxx and Ketek…
sb admin | May 29, 2008In 1999, the CDC announced its selections for the 10 greatest achievements in U.S. public health history in the 20th century, and among them was improvements in motor vehicle safety.  I've nothing against looking at success over a long term, but we know that much still needs to be done. The rate of motor vehicle fatalities has indeed declined substantially over the last 100 years, but the rate of deaths and serious injuries in roof-crush and rollovers has actually increased.
In 2006, (the most current NHTSA data available), nearly 11,500 people died in rollover crashes, and another 163,…