lborkowski | June 20, 2012As we're waiting to learn whether the Affordable Care Act will survive the upcoming Supreme Court decision, it's a good time to remember what's at stake with the individual mandate -- the part of the law that's least popular with the public and that some Supreme Court Justices seem to find objectionable. I've written before about why the mandate, which requires everyone who can afford it to purchase health insurance or pay a penalty, is a necessary part of the healthcare law and is not the same as requiring everyone to buy broccoli. Now, the Washington Post's Sarah Kliff adds to the…
cmonforton | June 19, 2012Researchers with the CDC's National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) report in the current issue of Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (Vol. 16, No. 23) on the prevalence of dust diseases of the lungs among U.S. surface coal miners. Based on chest x-rays performed on 2,238 workers who work at surface/strip coal mines in 16 States, 46 of them (about 2 percent) had radiographic evidence of coal workers' pneumoconiosis (CWP). The median age of the workers with CWP was only 56 years; the median years of mining experience was 33 years. Especially troubling is the…
lborkowski | June 18, 2012by Kim Krisberg
When most of us think of sustainability and construction, the usual suspects probably come to mind: efficient cooling and heating, using nontoxic building materials, minimizing environmental degradation — in other words, being green. But in Austin, Texas, a new effort is working to expand the definition of sustainability from the buildings themselves to the hands that put them together.
Launched about a year ago, the Workers Defense Project's Premier Community Builders program certifies major new developments as sustainable for workers. That means making sure construction…
lborkowski | June 18, 2012The day after the Tony Awards honored excellence in Broadway theater, the NIOSH Science Blog posted information about some of the theatrical hazards and precautions that may not be visible to audiences. Gregory A. Burr and Deborah Hornback write:
While the theater provides entertainment, the preparation and production of live performances can also pose hazards to those working in all aspects of the theater –from actors on stage to set designers behind the scenes and musicians in the orchestra pit. Some of these hazards were well publicized in recent years as multiple actors and stunt doubles…
lborkowski | June 15, 2012Yesterday, that National Academies Press celebrated its first year of offering free PDFs of many of its reports. NAP reported in an anniversary email that website visitors have downloaded over 1.3 million PDF versions of books -- and that over the next year NAP will be adding more books (new and old alike) to the list of free downloads. Among the most downloaded so far are:
The Future of Nursing: Leading Change, Advancing Health
Relieving Pain America: A Blueprint for Transforming Prevention, Care, Education, and Research
To Err is Human: Building a Safer Health System
The reports on…
egrossman | June 14, 2012by Elizabeth Grossman
“It’s basically strip mining,” said Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR) environmental engineer Rick Wulk, describing the sand mining activity that has exploded across western Wisconsin since 2010. Mining silica and quartz and processing it into industrial sand is big business these days because this sand is an important component of hydraulic fracturing operations that extract natural gas from shale. To understand the magnitude of the current boom in sand mining, the place to look is Wisconsin. What’s happening in Wisconsin also offers a good example of how…
lborkowski | June 13, 2012Last week, the House of Representatives Committee on Homeland Security Subcommittee on Emergency Preparedness, Response and Administration held a hearing on the National Preparedness Report released earlier this year by the Federal Emergency Management Administration. Subcommittee Chair Gus Bilirakis noted in his opening remarks that it’s the start of hurricane season, and cited the response to Hurricane Irene and the Joplin tornado as evidence that preparedness in the US has improved since the days of September 11, 2011 and Hurricane Katrina.
The first witness was FEMA Deputy Administrator…
lborkowski | June 12, 2012by Kim Krisberg
When an explosion on the BP-operated drilling rig Deepwater Horizon caused what would be the worst oil spill in U.S. history, Glenda Perryman's friends and neighbors answered the call for clean-up workers.
Perryman lives in Lucedale, MS, about 45 minutes from the Gulf Coast — "we're in the middle of nowhere...and there's no jobs in George County," she said. So when the call for clean-up workers went out, residents in and around George County decided to take BP up on the offer. As Perryman told me, "they quit their jobs at Wal-Mart and McDonald's for better pay and went down…
cmonforton | June 12, 2012A panel of scientific experts convened by the World Health Organization's (WHO) International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) concluded today that diesel engine exhaust is carcinogenic to humans. Previously, the IARC classification for diesel exhaust was "probably carcinogenic to humans," but with the publication of additional epidemiological and toxicological studies over the last 20 years, the expert panel determined there was sufficient evidence to change the compound's cancer designation. The IARC panel wrote:
"The scientific evidence was reviewed thoroughly by the Working Group…
cmonforton | June 11, 2012Tobacco companies did it. Asbestos-peddlers did it. Chromium users did it. The list goes on and on. When polluters and manufacturers of dangerous products feel threatened by scientific evidence that their pet compound is carcinogenic to humans, they will do everything money can by to avoid the "cancer-causing" label.
The latest example comes from diesel-engine manufacturers. Their efforts come just in time for a meeting of the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) scheduled for June 5-12, 2012. IARC, an agency within the World Health Organization, is convening an expert…
lborkowski | June 11, 2012by Beth Spence
Carrying enlarged photographs of their lost loved ones, family members of three of the 29 miners killed in the 2010 explosion at West Virginia’s Upper Big Branch mine spent June 6-7 in Washington, D.C., pleading with lawmakers to take action to improve mine safety and to stiffen penalties for mining companies that knowingly, willingly and recklessly place miners’ lives at risk.
Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) stands with Clay Mullins, Betty Harrah, Gary Quarles and AFSC staff member Beth Spence. Photo by Bryan Vana, American Friends Service Committee.
Betty Harrah’s photo showed…
cmonforton | June 8, 2012The Pump Handle reported on May 4, 2012 that the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) had scrubbed clean its website of documents on an abruptly withdrawn proposed regulation to protect young workers from being injured or killed in agricultural jobs. Two weeks later, a group of organizations dedicated to government transparency and accountability wrote to Obama Administration officials asking them to
"re-post the documents online relating to now-withdrawn proposed rules concerning child labor in agriculture."
The DOL's Wage & Hour Division proposed in August 2011 a rule to prohibit children…
lborkowski | June 7, 2012Via Ezra Klein, here's a striking infographic from the Bipartisan Policy Center comparing what makes us healthy to how we as a nation spend our health dollars:
Infographic from the Bipartisan Policy Center
As it illustrates, behaviors are major contributors to our health status, but a tiny fraction of US health spending goes to encouraging healthy behaviors like physical activity.
The Bipartisan Policy Center report Lots to Lose: How America's Health and Obesity Crisis Threatens our Economic Future offers several recommendations for improving nutrition and physical activity in the US. In…
cmonforton | June 6, 2012by Mark Catlin
Tony Mazzocchi was a visionary who was in the forefront of the labor movement's major struggles for social justice in the postwar period. Those hard fought struggles and victories, from the civil rights movement and the struggles against nuclear proliferation and the Vietnam War, to the struggle for environmental justice and the movement for occupational health and safety, which he spearheaded.
Last evening, in a very moving ceremony, the US Department of Labor inducted Tony Mazzocchi, dynamic labor leader, into its Labor Hall of Honor. The ceremony took place at the New…
lborkowski | June 5, 2012Last week, iWatch News (of the Center for Public Integrity) published an in-depth story on combustible dust explosions, which have killed or injured at least 900 workers over the past three decades. Chris Hamby tells the story of Wiley Sherburne, a 42-year-old electrician who was killed by burns from iron dust explosion at the Hoeganaes plant in Tennessee, and the long history of this occupational hazard. Hamby reports that worker-killing dust explosions have been documented since the late 1800s, but still continue. Whether the dust is from metal, nylon, wood, sugar, or another substance, its…
lborkowski | June 4, 2012by Kim Krisberg
A recent report again confirms what comes as no surprise to public health practitioners: that income and education are inextricably tied to the opportunities for better health and longevity.
In mid-May, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released its yearly report on Americans' health, "Health, United States, 2011." This year's report included a special section examining the links between socioeconomic status and health. It's another reminder that good health is as much — or even more — tied to what goes on outside a doctor's office rather than what goes on inside…
egrossman | June 4, 2012by Elizabeth Grossman
Tap water bursting into flame, water sources contaminated with toxic chemicals, once-pastoral rural hillsides turned over to industrial fossil fuel extraction, and unprecedented earthquake activity. These are among the environmental health concerns commonly associated with the extraction of natural gas by the method known as hydraulic fracturing – or fracking. But one of the more pernicious and pervasive potential occupational fracking hazards may come from sand. Not just ordinary sand, but sand that is nearly 100% crystalline silica and specially produced to play a key…
cmonforton | June 1, 2012by Laredo, golden retriever dog
A weird story appeared on my Facebook page today. It was written by somebody named "AP." The headline read: "Alpha introduces mine search-rescue dog in Va." I like working dogs just as much as the next canine, so I read the article. Says that "Ginny" is a two-year old dutch-shepherd dog who weighs 48 pounds.
Get this, Mr. AP's article says Ginny is:
"...the newest member of coal producer Alpha Natural Resources Inc.'s search-and-rescue team, trained to perform searches in both underground and surface mines. Equipped with an infrared camera and atmospheric…
cmonforton | May 31, 2012The Obama Administration's quest to appease business interests' claims about burdensome and outdated regulations awoke a giant in the form of the civil rights, public health and workers' safety communities. From the Southern Poverty Law Center and the National Council of LaRaza, to the American Public Health Association and Nebraska Appleseed, the feedback is loud and clear: USDA should withdraw the regulatory changes it proposed in January (77 Fed Reg 4408) which would shift the responsibility for examining and sorting poultry carcasses with obvious defects from USDA inspectors to the…
lborkowski | May 30, 2012Earlier this year, Kim Krisberg wrote about cuts to mental health funding in states across the country, and what that means for public health. Via Reporting on Health, here's a devastating portrait of the impact of mental health cuts to one California county, in a Modesto Bee series by Jocelyn Wiener:
Mental health care breaking down in Stanislaus County
Help eludes father until son ends up behind bars
A family's never-ending cycle
A shining light in Modesto
Wiener gives voice to people who suffer from mental illness and can't get help until they're in crisis, families who struggle to get…