egrossman | November 13, 2013At the 141st meeting of the American Public Health Association (APHA) held last week in Boston, the organization’s Occupational Health & Safety section honored the achievements of some extraordinarily dedicated individuals and organizations whose efforts have been advancing workplace safety. While these awards are typically most meaningful to others in the field, events taking place elsewhere around the country – among them the largest Walmart workers’ strike to date and voter approval of the country’s highest yet minimum wage – highlight the importance of this year’s award winners’ work…
cmonforton | November 12, 2013My jaw continues to drop when I think about the scathing reports this month from the Center for Public Integrity about the law firm Jackson Kelly and their scheming with clients to screw coal miners out of black lung benefits. In “Coal industry's go-to law firm withheld evidence of black lung, at expense of sick miners,” Chris Hamby explains the deceitful and devious manner in which Jackson Kelly attorneys intentionally withheld medical reports that validate diagnoses of serious respiratory disease in coal miners.
The irony---the disgusting irony---is how coal operators insist that their…
kkrisberg | November 11, 2013Larger investments in public health equal better health, fewer deaths and reduced medical spending — and the effect is especially pronounced in the communities that need it most, according to new research.
The findings are the latest in a series of studies that researcher Glen Mays and his colleagues at the National Coordinating Center for Public Health Services and Systems Research (PHSSR) are conducting on the health and economic value of public health spending. While Mays has authored previous research on the topic — such as this 2011 study that found public health spending is associated…
lborkowski | November 8, 2013According to the latest figures from the Census Bureau, 15% of the US population lives in poverty. The figure’s even worse for children: 22% of those under 18 are living in households with incomes below the federal poverty level. The US economy is officially out of the recession, but an estimated 95% of all the income gains since 2009 have gone to the 1% of the US population with the highest incomes. For millions of people, food stamps (technically, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP) make the difference between buying groceries and going hungry. Yet Congress has allowed…
cmonforton | November 7, 2013[Update below (April 10, 2015)]
"They sure kept that quiet."
My neighbors had that reaction when I told them about the 20-year old worker who was killed on-the-job at one of the Schlitterbahn water parks. This particular amusement-park company has four large water resorts in Texas and Kansas. My neighbors frequent the one in New Braunfels, TX, along with 900,000 other annual visitors, during central Texas' hot spring and summer months. I knew they'd want to know this story.
In March 2013, Nicolas "Nico" Benavides, 20, had been hired as a lifeguard, and had only been working a few weeks at the…
lborkowski | November 6, 2013At the American Public Health Association's annual meeting in Boston this week, the organization officially approved 17 policy statements, including one calling for the US to improve access to paid sick and family leave and one urging the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to require workplace injury and illness prevention programs. Having APHA on the record supporting these improvements will bolster ongoing campaigns for paid leave and OSHA's efforts to advance an injury and illness prevention standard. (Check out more news from Boston at the APHA Annual Meeting blog.)…
cmonforton | November 5, 2013The Obama Administration's USDA continues to insist that their proposed rule to "modernize" poultry slaughter inspections will improve food safety. Just last week, Secretary Vilsack's office said it is sticking with their plan, saying:
"comprehensive effort to modernize poultry slaughter inspection in ways that will reduce the risk for American families."
For the last 18 months, however, the USDA Secretary has heard loud and clear that his agency's proposal is certain to do much more harm than good. Advocates for and experts on food safety, workers safety, consumers, animal rights, and even…
kkrisberg | November 4, 2013It takes time to change social norms, so it'll probably take many, many years until it's as socially unacceptable to text or use a cell phone while driving as it is to start the engine without first buckling a seat belt. In the meantime, researchers say, smart policies are needed to address the increasing share of pedestrian and bicyclist deaths attributed to distracted driving.
According to a new study published in Public Health Reports, the rate of distracted driving-related fatalities per 10 billion vehicle miles traveled went up from 116.1 in 2005 to 168.6 in 2010 for pedestrians and from…
lborkowski | November 1, 2013If you only have time for one long read this week, make it the excellent "Breathless and Burdened" series by Chris Hamby of the Center for Public Integrity. The series website explains, "This yearlong investigation examines how doctors and lawyers, working at the behest of the coal industry, have helped defeat the benefits claims of miners sick and dying of black lung, even as disease rates are on the rise and an increasing number of miners are turning to a system that was supposed to help alleviate their suffering." This is investigative reporting at its finest!
Other recent pieces I've…
egrossman | October 31, 2013According to a new report from the Center for Effective Government, American workplace health and safety is suffering from – and as a result of – a serious lack of resources. While the number of US workplaces doubled between 1981 and 2011 and the number of US workers increased from 73 million to 129 million during this time, during the same 30 years, the number of Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) inspectors has declined. Instead of one inspector for every 1,900 workplaces, there is now only one inspector for every 4,300 workplaces (or, measured in other terms, one…
cmonforton | October 30, 2013A marriage of public health science and civil rights is one way to describe the lifework of John Froines, PhD, professor emeritus at UCLA School of Public Health. After a 50-year career in academia and public service, and the untolled contributions from it, Froines was recognized this week by the internationally renowned Collegium Ramazzini.
The nomination letter submitted to the Collegium by his colleagues captures many highlights of Froines’ impact over several decades, such as:
His high-profile role in the 1960’s anti-war and civil rights movements
His position with the Vermont State…
lborkowski | October 29, 2013I spent much of yesterday at a hearing held by the District of Columbia City Council’s Committee on Business, Consumer, and Regulatory Affairs – but I didn’t manage to stay for the entire 11 hours. Nearly 150 witnesses signed up to testify about the two main issues under consideration: raising the city’s minimum wage, and improving its paid-sick-leave law, which denies many workers access to paid sick days. The presence of so many witnesses, and the many hours they and Committee Chair Vincent Orange spent in the hearing room, demonstrate the importance of these issues that affect so many…
cmonforton | October 28, 2013Earlier this month I wrote about the merits of policies that require conflict of interest disclosures. Last week, two items also about conflicts of interest landed in my in-box. They were just too juicy to not take a bite, and write about here.
First came a commentary from the October 2013 issue of the Annals of Occupational Hygiene written by the journal’s chief editor Noah Seixas, PhD, MS. The lead paragraph reads:
"On 6 June 2013, a court in New York handed down a decision that calls into question the validity of research that was sponsored by Georgia-Pacific [GP] and published in eight…
kkrisberg | October 25, 2013Wages in the highly profitable fast food industry are so low that more than half of families of front-line fast food workers are enrolled in and depend on public assistance programs to make ends meet. In other words, that seemingly inexpensive burger and fries not only comes with a secret sauce, but a secret cost.
According to "Fast Food, Poverty Wages: The Public Cost of Low-Wage Jobs in the Fast Food Industry," which was released last week, the cost of such public assistance is nearly $7 billion every year, with Medicaid and Children's Health Insurance Program costs accounting for more than…
lborkowski | October 25, 2013Ian Frazier's in-depth New Yorker article on homelessness in New York seems especially timely, coming after a government shutdown that demonstrated how quickly low-income workers can fall into homelessness if their paychecks suddenly stop. (The shutdown also demonstrated some things about Congress, but I won't get into that here.) Here in DC, contract employees who serve food and clean offices in federal buildings were abruptly out of work. John Anderson, a line cook at a Smithsonian Museum, told the Washington Post's Jim Tankersley he had to work out a deal with his landlord because he…
egrossman | October 23, 2013On October 17, the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) announced that it has classified air pollution as a human carcinogen. Although the composition of air pollution and exposure levels vary widely from place to place, IARC says its assessment is applicable worldwide and notes that exposures in rapidly industrializing countries with large populations have increased significantly in recent years. According to the IARC review of the latest scientific studies, exposure to air pollution increases the risk for lung cancer and for bladder cancer. IARC…
cmonforton | October 22, 2013First it was the balloon at the grocery store in the shape of a pink ribbon, and the front page of the newspaper printed on pink paper. Then it was the specially-designed package of pink lipstick, and the NFL players decked out with shocking pink shoes, socks, and sweat towel. It's "Breast Cancer Awareness Month," and it’s pink, pink everywhere.
Others have been writing this month about pink-washing. That’s the phrase describing firms and organizations which sell products and host events to make the public think they are contributing in a meaningful way to the breast-cancer cause. (This week’…
lborkowski | October 21, 2013This month's issue of EHS Today includes a special section on Bangladesh factory safety, a topic that has continued to attract news coverage following the April collapse of the Rana Plaza building, which killed more than 1100 workers. Sandy Smith's introductory article summarizes some of the international efforts aimed at improving working condition in Bangladesh, including support of the Bangladeshi National Action Plan for Fire and Building Safety and two different retailer initiatives.
Scott Nova critiques existing factory inspection programs for "their abject failure to provide basic…
kkrisberg | October 18, 2013A new study finds that dropping out of high school greatly increases the risk of illness and disability in young adulthood. It's another example of why education is one of the greatest social determinants of health and a key leverage point in improving health across the lifespan.
Published earlier this month in the journal BMC Public Health, researchers found that dropping out of high school was associated with later illness and disability even after adjusting for other factors, such as family socioeconomic status, health-related risk behaviors, psychosocial risk factors and school problems.…
cmonforton | October 17, 2013Roger R. King, 62, in West Virginia. Robert Smith, 47, in Illinois. Mark Christopher Stassinos, 44, in Wyoming. Larry Schwartz, 59, in Indiana.
Four coal miners, working in four different States, employed by four different mining companies, all fatally injured on the job during the first eleven days of the government shutdown. King was employed at CONSOL's McElroy mine, Smith at Alliance Resources' Pattiki mine, Stassinos at PacifiCorp's Bridger mine, and Schwartz at Five Star Mining's Prosperity Mine.
I didn’t learn of these deaths from anything posted on the Mine Safety and Health…