safety
sb admin | December 19, 2008The National Council for Occupational Safety and Health (National COSH) is thrilled by President-elect Obama's selection of Cong. Hilda Solis to serve as Secretary of Labor.
"Rep. Solis has been a leader in fighting for healthier communities, a cleaner environment, and economic justice for the most vulnerable in society. We believe that she will have the vision and political will to oversee a much needed overhaul of the nation's system for ensuring worker safety, which has failed to provide adequate protections to America's workers over the past eight years." (See full News Release)
There…
sb admin | December 18, 2008On December 12th, the Washington Post reported that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) would not be altering their current stance on the usage of the plastic additive bisphenol A (BPA) in food and drug products. Â
"The agency has been reviewing its risk assessments for bisphenol A, a chemical used to harden plastic that is found in a wide variety of products, from baby bottles to compact discs to the lining of canned goods. The chemical, commonly called BPA, mimics estrogen and may disrupt the body's carefully calibrated endocrine system."
This is astounding given that the Post…
sb admin | December 10, 2008After my post yesterday "More Delays on OSHA's Overdue Crane Rule,"  I thought more about why OSHA's decision to extend the comment period really perturbs me. Â
Some might say "we're in the middle of the Bush-to-Obama Transition. It's not like an additional 45 days will make that much difference." Here's why it does make a difference:
If OSHA had stuck to its original Dec 8 due date for public comments, the work reviewing and reconciling the public input would now be underway.  Over the next six weeks before Mr. Obama is sworn in, the OSHA staff could have assembled a list…
sb admin | December 9, 2008When OSHA finally published on October 9 a proposed rule to protect workers using cranes and derricks, I thought (maybe) we'd turned a page on at least one inexcusable rulemaking delay.  But no. OSHA's acting assistant secretary, Thomas M. Stohler, signed off last week to drag out this rulemaking even longer.  In a Dec 2 Federal Register notice, the agency chief said that a "significant number of stakeholders have requested an extension" of time to submit their written comments. The new due date is January 22, 2009.Â
Who are these significant number of stakeholders?  OSHA doesn'…
revere | December 3, 2008Don't ask me why I am so fixated on this topic but whenever I see an article about driving and cell phone use I post on it (example here). The idea that talking on the phone, dialing or texting while driving might be a wee bit of a cognitive problem doesn't seem too controversial, but many people think that the "hands free" version gets around the dangers. The little work that has been done on that subject suggests otherwise. Does that mean that just talking to another passenger is just as bad? Apparently not:
Hands-free mobile phone calls are significantly more distracting than even the most…
sb admin | November 20, 2008Mr. Rosaulino Montano, 46, an employee of  Engineered Construction Products of Smithsburg, MD fell seven stories to his death on Tuesday, Nov 18 on the campus of my workplace, the George Washington University (GWU).  Mr. Montano was installing windows at a $75 million residence hall under construction at F St and 22nd St. on the Foggy Bottom campus. The 10-story building will house 400 students and is schedule to open in Fall 2009.Â
Mr. Montano's death is terrible, and when the official investigations are completed I'm sure we'll learn that his death should have been prevented…
sb admin | November 6, 2008In "DuPont finds high levels of C8 in Chinese workers," Ken Ward of the Charleston Gazette writes that workers at the Changshu, China plant had average blood concentration of about 2,250 ppb of perfluorooctanoate (PFOA), an agent used to make the non-stick compound Teflon. Ward writes:
"DuPont Co. has found high levels of the toxic chemical C8 in the blood of workers at a new Teflon plant in China, despite company promises to greatly reduce exposures and emissions.  ...DuPont installed its new Echelon technology. DuPont says this technology allows it to make 'low-PFOA' products. The…
revere | November 4, 2008The tort system is the favorite whipping boy of the anti-regulation crowd. That's because once you remove regulation, something the Bush administration has championed and done effectively, the only recourse someone injured by the fraud or negligence of a product or drug manufacturer is through a lawsuit for damages. Since the anti-regulation crowd serves Big Pharma and their cronies, this is the perfect solution: no constraints. The propaganda machine, aided an abetter by a compliant congress and a business dominated media, has been extremely successful in promoting the idea that tort suits…
sb admin | November 3, 2008Only 14 days after Gloria McInnis died in an explosion at a Goodyear plan in Houston, her husband Raymond McInnis testified before a subcommittee of the House Committee on Homeland Security. At the June 25, 2008 hearing, Mr. McInnis explained why he was present and sharing his grief and pain in such a public forum:
"It is not easy for me but I came here today to talk about what happened to Gloria, but I don't want this to happen to anyone else. Neither would Gloria."
The McInnis family's nightmare was made particularly unbearable because they were originally told by a Goodyear…
sb admin | October 20, 2008A long awaited OSHA proposed rule on crane safety was published in the Federal Register on Oct 9. The current OSHA safety standards on cranes and derricks dates back to at least 1971, and these proposed changes have been in the works for 10 years. I've criticized OSHA's Asst. Secretary for the deadly delay in proposing this rule, and it is indeed good news that the proposal is now in the public comment phase of the rulemaking process. The comment period ends on December 8.
I noticed something strange, however, in OSHA's news release about the proposal. There was not a peep …
sb admin | October 13, 2008Mr. Bill Oxley was working at the Bayer CropScience plant in Institute, WV on August 28. At about 10:25 pm, a massive fireball erupted at the facility, killing his co-worker, Barry Withrow, 45. The dramatic facts surrounding this explosion included that plant officials told the dispatchers that an emergency situation was in progress, but as far as giving the 911 operator further details: "I'm only allowed to tell you we have an emergency."Â
When I originally wrote about this disaster, I only knew this about Mr. Bill Oxley:
"A second worker was seriously injured in the explosion and…
sb admin | October 9, 2008"American Coal Co. repeatedly demonstrated its failure to comply with basic safety laws over a number of months, and for that it must be held accountable."Â (Asst. Secretary of Labor for MSHA Richard Stickler)
Yesterday, MSHA issued a news release announcing that the operator of the Galatia Mine in Saline County, Illinois was receving $1.46 million in penalties for scores of safety and health violations it's wracked up over the last year. The underground coal mine is owned by American Coal Company, a subsidiary of Murray Energy Corp--the same corporate controller of the Utah Crandall…
sb admin | October 8, 2008By Nathan Fetty
Every so often, my wife and I take our daughter, whoâs now two-and-a-half, on one of our favorite walks in the country here in central West Virginia. To get there, unfortunately, we have to pass by torrents of orange acid mine drainage (photo examples here and here) and through a landscape brutalized by mining. But the woods and streams beyond this devastation are as prime as any in West Virginia. Thatâs why we keep going there. We want our child to know these kinds of special places.
Our daughterâs becoming more and more verbal. She loves to point out things as sheâs…
sb admin | September 18, 2008In 1971 under the National Cancer Act, Congresss authorized the 3-person President's Cancer Panel which is charged with monitoring the "development and execution of the National Cancer Program" and preparing periodic progress reports for the President. Over the years, the Panel has examined quality of life for cancer patients, access to care issues, and lifestyle risk factors related to cancer. The Panel's focus for 2008-2009 is "Cancer and the Environment," a topic endorsed by The Collaborative on Health and Environment (CHE) and the topic of a draft consensus statement released by CHE…
sb admin | September 15, 2008by revere, cross-posted at Effect Measure
Two of my grandsons were here today. They are just babies (16 months and month and half) but one of them is a little colicky. He looks like he is having cramps after downing his formula. But compared to some babies in China, it's nothing. The formula they've been drinking was adulterated with melamine, the same adulterant responsible for pet deaths from tainted dog food not long ago (see here, here, here). Dozens of poor babies have kidney stones. One has died. If you've never had kidney stones, this might not mean that much. But I've had them. Twice…
sb admin | September 8, 2008"This happens. We live with that."
These are the words of ironworker Luis Guzman, who was working at the site of a new Manhattan skyscraper Tuesday when his fellow worker, Anthony Espito, 43, fell 40 stories (roughly 400 feet) to the ground. He was killed instantly. It appeared Mr. Espito was in fact wearing a safety harness, but it wasn't attached to anything.
Some of you may recall, I wrote a post just a few weeks ago about the shocking number of preventable workplace fatalities resulting from falls (see that post here). The day after, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that there…
ddobbs | September 5, 2008You want mail, write about cell phones and DNA.
Earlier today, when I posted a heads-up to a Science story about questions raised about data-tampering in what Science called "The only two peer-reviewed scientific papers" showing strong links between cell phone use and DNA mutations, I noted I was surprised at the lack of press coverage about this, given how heavily most papers on the subject are reported. Two hours later I got a note from Louis Slesin, who blogs on such issues at Microwave News, asserting that the Science story oversimplified the situation. Slesin pointed me to his Sept 3…
sb admin | September 4, 2008by revere, cross-posted at Effect Measure
McCain wants to go full speed ahead for nuclear power (that's a maverick's way of dealing with climate change?) and Obama seems to feel friendly to it, too, as long as the waste disposal issue can be solved, satisfactorily (which it doesn't seem it can be, but that's another story). Everyone agrees that nuclear power has to be managed safely if we are going to rely on it to any extent and we are always given assurances that this is not only possible but what happens as a matter of course, no exceptions. To make sure, government plans are reviewed by…
sb admin | September 3, 2008On Friday, August 29, Carolyn Merritt, 61, the former chair of the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (2002-2007) passed away after a valiant battle against metastic breast cancer. Advocates for workers' safety will remember Ms. Merritt as an outspoken expert who minced no words when she insisted that work-related injuries and fatalities are PREVENTABLE.
Tammy Miser of United Support and Memorial for Workplace Fatalities (USMWF) came to know the CSB chairwoman after Tammy lost her brother, Shawn Boone, in an aluminum dust explosion at his workplace in Huntington,…
sb admin | August 27, 2008by Tom Bethell
(Posted with permission from The Mountain Eagle, Whitesburg, KY)
Just when you think youâve seen it all, somebody in the Bush administration comes up with another way to compromise somebody elseâs rights. The latest example is Richard Stickler, director of the Mine Safety and Health Administration.
MSHA has been much in the news since 2006. Coal miners have suffered a string of disasters â Sago, Aracoma Alma, Kentucky Darby, Crandall Canyon â that might have been avoided or mitigated if MSHA since 2001 had stuck to its congressionally mandated job, which is law enforcement. But…