SOII

Researchers with Michigan State University’s (MSU) Department of Occupational and Environmental Medicine have done it again. First it was work-related burns. Then it was work-related amputations. Now it is work-related skull fractures. The MSU researchers continue to poke holes in the federal government’s annual estimates of occupational injuries. Joanna Kica, MPA and Ken Rosenman, MD used data from acute care hospitals, workers’ compensation records, death certificates and police reports to identify work-related fatal and non-fatal skull fractures occurring in Michigan in 2012. They…

Brett Bouchard, 17, was working at Violi’s Restaurant in Massena, NY last month. Press reports indicate he was cleaning out a pasta-making machine when the equipment severed his right arm at the elbow. He was rushed to a local hospital which later transferred the young worker to Massachusetts General Hospital. Nationally, there are thousands of work-related amputations each year. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) estimates that 5,100 U.S. workers suffered an amputation injury in 2012. But we’ve written here before about the limitations of BLS’ estimates for work-related injuries. Those…

It's not the first time that Kenneth Rosenman, MD has provided scientific evidence on the deficiencies in the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) annual survey of occupational injuries and illnesses, and it won't be the last.  His latest study, written with Joanna Kica, MPA, with Michigan State University's (MSU) Department of Medicine ,reports that the Labor Department's methods for estimating work-related burns misses about 70% of them.  Their analysis focused on cases occurring in the State of Michigan in 2009.   The MSU researchers used data from the State's 134 acute-care hospital, which…