lborkowski | July 20, 2015Back in 2009, the Colorado Family Planning Initiative started providing free IUDs and other contraceptive implants to low-income women getting care at state Title X family planning clinics. As I described previously, funds from an anonymous foundation supported the purchase of the devices, as well as training for providers and staff and technical assistance – and Colorado teens’ use of these highly effective contraceptives jumped dramatically. The results, Sabrina Tavernise reports in the New York Times, have been startling: “The birthrate among teenagers across the state plunged by 40…
kkrisberg | July 17, 2015Every day in the U.S., more than 40 people die after overdosing on prescription painkillers. Deaths from a more notorious form of opiates — heroin — increased five-fold between 2001 and 2013. Addressing this problem — one that’s often described as a public health crisis — requires action on many fronts, from preventing abuse in the first place to getting those addicted into treatment. But when it comes to overdoses, there’s one answer we know works: naloxone.
Naloxone is a safe prescription medicine that’s highly effective in reversing an otherwise deadly opioid overdose. Typically, emergency…
cmonforton | July 16, 2015Jason Strycharz’s work-related death could have been prevented. That’s how I see the findings of federal OSHA in the agency's citations against his employer Kloeckner Metals. The 40 year-old was working in January 2015 at the company’s warehouse in Middletown, CT. The initial press reports indicated that Strycharz was struck by a piece of steel swinging from a crane. I wrote about the incident shortly after it was reported by local press.
OSHA inspectors conducted an inspection at the facility following Jason Strycharz’s death. The agency recently issued a citation to the firm. The agency…
cmonforton | July 15, 2015The safety consulting firm, Compliance Professionals, Inc. needs to revise its website. The firm boasts of its skill at developing workplace safety policies and manuals, and its ability to help a company deal with an OSHA inspection.
“OSHA just showed up...” they tease. We can make "this go away for less cost than a part-time, minimum wage file clerk.” Big bold letters on its website say:
We’ve NEVER had an existing client successfully sued or fined…and we don’t intend on starting with you!
That’s the part they need to revise---about never being fined.
A federal judge fined both Compliance…
kkrisberg | July 14, 2015At The Nation, leaders in the domestic workers movement write about what’s next in their efforts to improve conditions for the thousands who work in people’s homes, often with no rights or recourse.
Authored by Ai-jen Poo and Andrea Cristina Mercado, both with the National Domestic Workers Alliance, the article chronicles the “legacy of exclusion” that domestic workers have experienced, such as their exemption from federal labor protections, as well as the day-to-day conditions they often face in people’s homes — conditions that can result in serious and long-term injuries. The authors write…
lborkowski | July 13, 2015A few of the recent pieces I've liked:
The excellent "Unequal Risk" series by the Center for Public Integrity's Jim Morris, Jamie Smith Hopkins, and Maryam Jameel ("Workers in America face risks from toxic exposures that would be considered unacceptable outside the job — and in many cases are perfectly legal.")
Sarah Kliff at Vox: Do no harm ("There's an infection hospitals can nearly always prevent. Why don't they?")
Ta-Nehisi Coates in The Atlantic: Letter to My Son ("Here is what I would like for you to know: In America, it is traditional to destroy the black body -- it is heritage.")…
kkrisberg | July 10, 2015Thanks to the Affordable Care Act, American women are saving hundreds of dollars on birth control, according to the first study to document the impact of health reform on prescription contraception spending.
To conduct the study, which was published this month in Health Affairs, researchers analyzed claims data from a large national insurer between January 2008 and June 2013, eventually examining data linked to more than 790,800 women. They found that the average out-of-pocket expense decreased for nearly all prescription contraceptive methods on the market. In particular, the average out-of-…
cmonforton | July 9, 2015Gerald Lyle Thompson, 51, suffered fatal traumatic injuries on Tuesday, June 30, 2015 while working in Lakeville, Minnesota for DSM Excavating.
KSTP reports:
His employer, DSM Excavating was hired by Ryland Homes for the excavation project. The trench in which Thompson was working caved in on him.
The Star-Tribune reports:
Thompson and his brother were “installing drain tile on the perimeter of a lot…when the trench collapsed ...”
The trench was 6 to 8 feet deep and Thompson was trapped at the bottom of it when the soil collapsed onto him.
The Dakota County Special Operations team recovered…
kkrisberg | July 8, 2015A key argument in the movement to expand sick leave to all workers is that such policies help curb the spread of contagious diseases. And there are few workplaces where that concept is more important than in health care settings, where common diseases can be especially dangerous for patients with compromised immune systems. However, a new study finds that despite such risks, doctors and nurses still feel pressured to report to work while sick.
Published earlier this week in JAMA Pediatrics, the study is based on anonymous surveys conducted in a large children’s hospital in Philadelphia and…
kkrisberg | July 7, 2015Recycling our garbage is good for the planet, but a new report finds that the workers who process our recyclable materials often face dangerous and unnecessary conditions that put their health and safety at serious risk.
Released in late June, “Sustainable and Safe Recycling: Protecting Workers Who Protect the Planet” chronicles the many hazards that recycling workers encounter on the job as well as ways the recycling industry and local officials can collaborate to improve and ensure worker safety. The report — a collaboration between the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives, the…
cmonforton | July 3, 2015The work-related death of drill rig operator Ernesto Rodriguez, 41, did not result in any OSHA citations against his employer Complete Energy Services dba Mercer Well Services. I wrote about Rodriguez’s death on-the-job shortly after it was reported by local press.
The incident occurred on September 10, 2014 at an XTO Energy (ExxonMobil) well near Mannsville, OK. OSHA commenced its investigation on September 11 and closed the case on April 9, 2015. This is the only information on OSHA’s website about the fatality involving Ernesto Rodriguez. To find out more, I sent a FOIA request to the…
cmonforton | July 2, 2015Following last Friday’s Supreme Court ruling, most county clerks here in Texas began issuing marriage licenses to same sex couples. But many of those happy couples couldn’t immediately tie-the-knot. Texas requires couples to wait 72-hours after obtaining their license before they can say “I do.”* About half the States have such waiting periods which range from 24 hours to six days. One source describes the wait time as providing:
“a cooling-off period for the couple to determine if they truly wish to be married.”
So if a cooling off period is a good idea for matrimony, I’m stumped why there’s…
lborkowski | July 1, 2015The Republican-led House Appropriations Committee's FY 2016 Labor, Health and Human Services funding bill contains a single sentence that could dramatically set back public health: "None of the funds appropriated in this Act 4 may be used to carry out title X of the PHS Act."
Title X is a federal grant program that funds a network of 4,400 centers that provide high-quality, cost-effective family-planning services for approximately five million clients each year. These centers also offer breast and cervical cancer screening and pregnancy testing, and they provide both men and women with HIV…
kkrisberg | June 30, 2015This week, the Center for Public Integrity launched a new investigative series into the failure of regulators to protect workers for toxic exposures. The series begins with the story of a bricklayer who developed acute silicosis after exposure to silica, a deadly substance that threatens more than 2 million workers and that OSHA has been struggling to regulate for 40 years. The bricklayer, Chris Johnson, is just 40 years old and can expect to survive less than five years. Reporters Jim Morris, Jamie Smith Hopkins and Maryam Jameel write:
An 18-month investigation by the Center for Public…
lborkowski | June 29, 2015by Peter Dooley, CSP, CIH
On Thursday June 25 forty groups around the country delivered 25,000 petition signatures calling on Hyundai to support good jobs throughout its supply chain. Altogether, about 25 national, state and local organizations—unions, the faith community, community groups, health and safety advocates (COSH groups), student groups and others—participated in the delegations to support workers who are organizing to form their union with the United Auto Workers (UAW).
SoCal COSH and delegation at Hyundai in Fountain Valley, CA (Photo by:Regem Corpus, SoCal COSH intern)…
kkrisberg | June 26, 2015A common hurdle in the field of occupational health and safety is delivering what can sometimes be life-saving information to the people who need it most. After all, not all employers are amenable to workplace health and safety education. But what if safety advocates could find and connect with the most at-risk workers out in the community? Perhaps even reach vulnerable workers with safety education before they experience an injury at work?
New research from the University of Illinois-Chicago School of Public Health could help safety advocates do just that. Linda Forst, director of the school…
kkrisberg | June 25, 2015Analyzing online searches and social media activity has often been suggested as a way to track and maybe even predict the spread of diseases. And it’s a great idea — if it’s done right, it could offer public health workers real-time surveillance and a jumpstart at containing dangerous outbreaks. But there’s a hitch. How can we attempt to decipher between online activity triggered by the possibility of actual disease symptoms and online activity triggered by simple curiosity?
That was the question Sherry Towers and her colleagues set out to answer. At the very least, they wanted to gain some…
cmonforton | June 25, 2015The American Public Health Association (APHA) takes the prize for the best headline in response to today’s Supreme Court’s decision on the Affordable Care Act (ACA): "Six million sighs of relief."
APHA’s executive director Georges Benjamin, MD elaborated:
“We are pleased the court understood the legislative history and intent of this law… We know that when people can’t afford health insurance, they don’t get health care — and get sicker as a result. …APHA and the public health community rejoice in today’s decision, and look forward to working with the administration and Congress to realize…
lborkowski | June 24, 2015Innovation in healthcare doesn't just mean new drugs and devices; sometimes, studying and updating procedures can result in big improvements for patients' health. In the New York Times, Gina Kolata reports on procedure changes hospitals have made to improve care for heart-attack patients:
With no new medical discoveries, no new technologies, no payment incentives — and little public notice — hospitals in recent years have slashed the time it takes to clear a blockage in a patient’s arteries and get blood flowing again to the heart.
The changes have been driven by a detailed analysis of the…
cmonforton | June 22, 2015Will calls for humanely-treated poultry workers supersede commentaries (e.g., here, here) about mistreatment of chickens?
OSHA’s action last week may help us move in that direction. The agency issued penalties to a Delaware poultry processing facility for serious safety hazards. Allen Harim Foods received citations for two harmful working conditions that I've heard poultry workers complain about most strongly: The fast-paced repetitive motion of cutting chicken parts which cripples their hands, and restrictions on using the bathroom which strains (and worse) their bladders.
The…