lborkowski | March 19, 2013On Monday, President Obama nominated Thomas E. Perez to be the next Secretary of Labor. He introduced Perez by saying:
Like so many Americans, Tom knows what it’s like to climb the ladder of opportunity. He is the son of Dominican immigrants. He helped pay his way through college as a garbage collector and working at a warehouse. He went on to become the first lawyer in his family. So his story reminds us of this country’s promise, that if you’re willing to work hard, it doesn’t matter who you are, where you come from, what your last name is -- you can make it if you try.
And Tom has made…
lborkowski | March 18, 2013by Kim Krisberg
When it comes to public health law, it seems the least coercive path may also be the one of least resistance.
In a new study published this month in Health Affairs, researchers found that the public does, indeed, support legal interventions aimed at curbing noncommunicable diseases such as diabetes, heart disease and obesity. However, they're more likely to support interventions that create the conditions that help people make the healthy choice on their own. They're less likely to back laws and regulations perceived as infringing on individual liberties. It's a delicate…
lborkowski | March 15, 2013If you've followed the link from the New York Times Magazine's letters page, welcome to The Pump Handle! We're a public health blog covering issues from healthcare to worker health and safety to water and sanitation; see our About page for the story behind our name. The full version of my post about Amtrak is here.
What I said in that post was that it makes sense to invest in intercity rail because intercity car and air travel might become prohibitively expensive and/or time-consuming in the future -- whether due to a carbon tax, oil supply issues, traffic and air travel hassles, or something…
lborkowski | March 14, 2013Last week, CDC Director Thomas Frieden opened a press briefing by saying, "It's not often that our scientists come to me to say that we have a very serious problem, and we need to sound an alarm." What scientists found, and reported in CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, is that a growing proportion of Enterobacteriaceae (a family of bacteria known for causing hospital-acquired infections) are resistant to carbapenems, a type of antibiotics that's typically been the last line of attack against stubborn infections. Frieden explained why these carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae (…
lborkowski | March 13, 2013Alabama's poultry industry produces more than one billion broiler chickens each year and accounts for 10% of the state's economy. According to the new report Unsafe at These Speeds, this production comes at a steep price for the low-paid, hourly workers working in poultry plants.
The Southern Poverty Law Center and Alabama Appleseed interviewed 302 poultry workers from Alabama's poultry industry and heard about grueling work that has left nearly three-fourths of them reporting significant work-related injuries or illnesses. A fast-moving processing line has small teams of workers handling…
lborkowski | March 12, 2013On March 12, 2003, the World Health Organization issued a global health alert for an atypical pneumonia that was soon dubbed SARS, severe acute respiratory syndrome. The coronavirus had a high fatality rate; it emerged in China's Guangdong province and within a month affected 8,000 patients, killing 774 of them in 26 countries. Toronto was one of the cities hit hard by the disease, and ace health reporter Helen Branswell of the Canadian Press has written several pieces on ten-year anniversary of the outbreak.
In "A decade ago, SARS raced round the world; Where is it now? Will it return?"…
lborkowski | March 11, 2013In the Washington Post, Sari Horwitz and Lena H. Sun report that President Obama will likely nominate Thomas E. Perez to be the next Secretary of Labor, following the departure of Secretary Hilda Solis. Perez is currently assistant US attorney general for civil rights.
The article mentions work by Perez on issues important to workers' health and safety. In 2005, Perez served as president of the Montgomery County (Maryland) Council, and one of the laws he pushed for was a domestic workers' "bill of rights." In 2007, Governor Martin O'Malley appointed him the state's secretary of labor, and in…
lborkowski | March 8, 2013by Kim Krisberg
In a little less than a month, public health workers and their community partners in Macomb County, Mich., will set up at the local Babies"R"Us store to offer parents a free child car seat check. The Macomb County Health Department has been organizing such car seat checks for years now, knowing that proper child vehicle restraints can truly mean the difference between mild and severe injuries, or between survival and death.
The car seat check is taking place April 4 in observance of the fourth day of this year's National Public Health Week (NPHW) celebration, which officially…
lborkowski | March 7, 2013Haiti's cholera epidemic began in October 2010, as the country was still reeling from the devastation of the January 2010 earthquake. The epidemic has now claimed nearly 8,000 lives, and although transmission has slowed, more than 1,500 new cases are still reported each week. Evidence suggests the cholera bacteria arrived in Haiti via UN peacekeepers from Nepal and spread because of an inadequate sanitation system in peacekeeper housing. Last month, however, the UN responded to a compensation lawsuit by invoking immunity under section 29 of the Convention on the Privileges and Immunities of…
lborkowski | March 6, 2013In the Washington Post, Sandra G. Boodman writes about anger management problems in healthcare:
At a critical point in a complex abdominal operation, a surgeon was handed a device that didn’t work because it had been loaded incorrectly by a surgical technician. Furious that she couldn’t use it, the surgeon slammed it down, accidentally breaking the technician’s finger. “I felt pushed beyond my limits,” recalled the surgeon, who was suspended for two weeks and told to attend an anger management course for doctors.
The 2011 incident illuminates a long-festering problem that many hospitals have…
cmonforton | March 5, 2013How is it that a construction firm that specializes in underground utility work and excavation can be so dense when it comes to knowing the fundamentals of protecting workers from cave-ins? Or is it that they know the fundamentals but just choose not to apply them.
The Houston-area excavation firm SER Construction Partners was cited last month by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) for willfully failing to comply with standards for safe excavation practices. The OSHA news release announcing the sanction appropriately, noting:
"A cave-in can turn into a grave in a matter…
lborkowski | March 4, 2013While the latest New York Times Magazine paints a portrait of the relatively small slice of the US population that takes long-distance train rides, a recent Brookings Institution report notes that millions of shorter-distance riders have made Amtrak the fastest-growing mode of travel in the US. In A New Alignment: Strengthening America's Commitment to Passenger Rail, Robert Puentes, Adie Tomer, and Joseph Kane report that Amtrak ridership has grown 55% since 1997 (compared to a 20% increase in air travel), and now carries more than 31 million riders annually.
This renaissance of rail doesn't…
lborkowski | March 1, 2013by Kim Krisberg
Texas construction workers who've lost their lives on unsafe worksites may be gone, but they certainly haven't been forgotten. Earlier this week, hundreds of Texas workers and their supporters took to the streets to demand legislators do more to stop preventable injury and death on the job. They took their demands and the stories of fallen workers all the way the halls of the state capitol.
Just two days ago, workers from every corner of the Lone Star state made their way to Austin to take part in the Day of the Fallen, a day of action to memorialize construction workers…
cmonforton | February 28, 2013In an editorial published today in the Journal of Public Health Policy, Anthony Robbins, MD, MPA calls on the public health community to take on the social problem of distracted driving caused by mobile devices.
"Only a public health strategy is likely to weave government, commercial, community, and individual tools available in schools, workplaces, and neighborhoods, into a comprehensive approach to make people safer while on or near roads."
Robbins argues that the problem is more complex than drivers behaving badly.
"Around the world, new communication technology is ever more ubiquitous […
lborkowski | February 27, 2013Over the past half-decade, the US has seen a sharp increase in high-volume hydraulic fracturing -- also called hydrofracking, or simply "fracking" -- to extract natural gas from underground shale formations. States' responses to fracking applications have varied, and in general public health concerns seem to have gotten far too little consideration.
The latest issue of the environmental and occupational health policy journal New Solutions is devoted to the issue of high-volume hydraulic fracturing (HVHF), and PDFs of all the articles are available for free online. It's a great resource for…
cmonforton | February 26, 2013Most of the tributes to former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop, who died yesterday at age 96, are quick to remind us that he became a household name. As the New York Times' story notes that "is a rare distinction for a public health administrator." Dr. Koop's notoriety could be attributed to his "long silver beard and white braided uniform," as TIME magazine noted, to his pronouncements in 1986 about the health effects of second-hand tobacco smoke, and for his eventual warnings about the risk factors associated with contracting HIV. The USA Today's obituary about the Reagan-era Surgeon…
lborkowski | February 25, 2013The two-year anniversary of OSHA's proposed silica rule being stuck at the White House Office of Management & Budget (which Celeste wrote about here) attracted some media attention. NPR's Nell Greenfieldboyce did an in-depth story on the hazards of airborne silica exposure, which increases the risk of lung cancer and the lung disease silicosis, and the lengthy White House inaction on OSHA's proposal. Her piece includes a story from one worker who saw the damage of silica exposure firsthand:
Tom Ward, a 44-year-old mason who lives and works in Michigan, knows just how bad silicosis is.…
lborkowski | February 22, 2013by Kim Krisberg
For many migrant farmworkers, the health risks don't stop at the end of the workday. After long, arduous hours in the field, where workers face risks ranging from tractor accidents and musculoskeletal injuries to pesticide exposure and heat stroke, many will return to a home that also poses dangers to their well-being. And quite ironically for a group of workers that harvests our nation's food, one of those housing risks is poor cooking and eating facilities.
A group of researchers and advocates recently decided to take a closer look at such facilities among migrant farmworker…
cmonforton | February 21, 2013Outdoor carnivals, with their thrill rides, the carousel, cotton candy and arcade games, connote fun and happiness. But for the immigrant workers employed in the U.S. carnival and fair industry, happiness and fun don't describe their employment situation.
"They treat us like dogs."
"Sometimes we work 20-hour days, and even if it's raining...there's no time to rest doing this kind of work."
"He called us '[f***ing] Mexicans or [f***ing] tortillas."
"I worked 98 hours a week, and earned $2 per hour. I could take a brief break during the day, but only to go to the bathroom or eat."
"We couldn'…
cmonforton | February 20, 2013From my hometown of Detroit, there's more grim news. The story that made today's headline comes from the State-authorized financial review team. They unanimously concluded that a fiscal emergency exists in Detroit. The city, with a population of about 700,000 residents, has $14 billion in long-term debt and a projected $100 million budget shortfall for this year. The story that didn't get a headline, but is equally important for the city's future, concerns the effects of lead poisoning on academic achievement among Detroit's school children. A newly published study in the American…