lborkowski | March 9, 2012by Elizabeth Grossman
Nurses face many hazards on the job, and one that clearly demands more detailed analysis than it's received to date is the effect of occupational chemical exposures on nurses' reproductive health. A recent study by researchers at the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), Harvard School of Public Health, and Brigham and Women's Hospital has found that female nurses exposed to sterilizing agents and chemotherapy drugs at work are at least twice as likely to have miscarriages than those who are not. The study, published in The American Journal of…
lborkowski | March 8, 2012In the latest issue of EHS Today, Terence Milford lays out the case to employers for investing in ergonomics:
In 2002, a survey conducted by the U.S. Department of Labor reported that employees suffering from repetitive stress injuries incurred in the workplace took a median of 23 days off work, while those who experienced a slip, fall or trip took 7, and those exposed to harmful substances took just 3.
Ergonomics and the impact on workers' compensation claims not only is found in the office or in manufacturing jobs. In 2007, NIOSH reported that of the workers' compensation claims made across…
cmonforton | March 7, 2012I was saddened to read that Congressman Donald Payne (D-NJ) died yesterday from colon cancer. Just a month ago, the 77-year old Member of Congress announced he was undergoing treatment for the disease. An estimated 51,700 individuals in the U.S. will die this year from cancers of the colon and rectum.
"I am heartbroken to learn of Congressman Payne's passing," said Congressman George Miller (D-CA) in a statement. The two served together for several years on the House Education and the Workforce Committee. Miller's statement continues:
"Donald served his constituents and this nation…
lborkowski | March 6, 2012Back in December, the Department of Labor's Wage & Hour Division published a proposed rule that would extend minimum-wage and overtime pay protections to the home care workers who assist elderly and disabled patients with their daily needs. The Fair Labor Standards Act requires that nonexempt workers be paid minimum wage (currently $7.25 per hour) and 1.5 times their pay for hours worked above 40 hours in a week. (It also prohibits most forms of child labor, but allows children to work in agriculture, as Celeste has discussed.) Many of us are exempt from these requirements because we're…
cmonforton | March 5, 2012The Center for Public integrity's Jim Morris was the first to report that two long awaited cancer mortality studies of US workers exposed to diesel exhaust finds significantly elevated levels of lung cancer. Researchers with the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and CDC's National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) proposed the studies two decades ago, going great lengths to address methodological limitations identified in previous epidemiological studies of diesel exhaust-exposed workers. The bottom line, and with now stronger evidence than ever, there should be no question…
lborkowski | March 2, 2012The World Health Organization has confirmed that India has gone a whole year without having a new case of polio -- a major milestone in a country that was once plagued by the crippling disease. BBC's Fergus Walsh explains that the country won't formally be regarded as polio-free until it's gone another two years without a case of the disease, but reaching the one-year mark is still an occasion for celebration. In an earlier piece, Walsh describes the massive polio vaccination effort that has allowed the country to achieve this success; India's government partnered with the World Health…
cmonforton | March 1, 2012Federal OSHA proposed a $283,000 penalty against an employer responsible for staffing a Hershey's chocolate packaging facilty in Palmyra, Pennsylvania for willfully violating workplace safety regulations. The agency's action followed a formal complaint lodged by workers at the plant, many of whom were foreign students employed under the State Department's J-1 visa program. A few hundred of them walked off the job last summer to protest the poor working conditions in the Hershey plant. The New York Times' Julie Preston reported at the time about workers' injuries related to heavy lifting,…
cmonforton | February 29, 2012The topics for my blog posts sometimes come from unusual places. This post is one of these. It popped in my head as I watched Natalie Portman announce the nominees for best actor during Sunday night's Academy Award broadcast. The snippet featuring Demián Bichir in "A Better Life" reminded me of a worker-fatality report that I bookmarked a few weeks ago, but never got around to reading. Like Bichir's character Carlos Galindo, I recall the report's abstract mentioned a day laborer who might have worked as a gardener.
I opened the bookmark yesterday to the report released in January 2012 by…
lborkowski | February 28, 2012by Kim Krisberg
Walking around a public health laboratory is seriously cool.
Giant humming machines, rows of test tubes and small, round dishes containing specimens with hard-to-pronounce names, biohazard warnings and emergency shower stations, an egg incubator and liquid nitrogen generator, people in protective gear with bulky white hoods and face shields. Oh, and boxes with severed animal heads inside.
"Everything is just so unusual and every day is different," Dr. Grace Kubin told me as she took me on a tour of the Texas state public health lab in Austin last week.
After years of…
lborkowski | February 27, 2012There's a growing body of research linking childhood trauma (abuse, neglect, family dysfunction, etc.) to impaired brain development and functioning. Maia Szalavitz at TIME's Healthland blog describes the findings of new study by Harvard researchers (published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences):
Now, in the largest study yet to use brain scans to show the effects of child abuse, researchers have found specific changes in key regions in and around the hippocampus in the brains of young adults who were maltreated or neglected in childhood. These changes may leave victims…
cmonforton | February 24, 2012On July 27, 2011, just a few miles from my home in San Marcos, TX, Mr. Margarito Guardado Resinos, 34, and Mr. Nelson Pineda were working together to erect a pre-engineered steel building frame on property owned by Thermon Manufacturing. The workers were employed by Jetka Steel Erectors of Katy, TX, a firm hired by Bailey Elliot Construction of Austin, TX, to perform certain aspects of the project. Just before noon on July 27, 2011 the metal structure collapsed, killing Mr. Resinos and injurying Mr. Pineda.
Federal OSHA safety officers investigated the fatal incident and issued citations…
cmonforton | February 23, 2012Agricultural exceptionalism is a term used to describe the special status awarded to employers and firms involved in agriculture. Proponents argue that the special status is necessary because (1) agricultural products contribute to broad national goals (e.g., providing safe and affordable food, preventing hunger); and (2) farming is inherently risky because of the uncertainty of weather and pests.
This exceptionalism allows employers, for example, to provide lesser protection and benefits to their workers compared to what is given to workers employed in non-agriculture industries.…
lborkowski | February 22, 2012Earlier today, US Attorney Booth Goodwin charged Upper Big Branch mine superintendent Gary May with "conspiring to impede the Mine Safety and Health Administration's enforcement efforts" at that mine. Massey Energy's Upper Big Branch mine in Raleigh County, West Virginia was the site of numerous health and safety violations leading up to the April 5, 2010 explosion that killed 29 miners. The Charleston Gazette's Ken Ward Jr. has the details on the charges against May:
May, 43, of Bloomingrose, is accused of taking part in a scheme to provide advance warning of government inspections and then…
lborkowski | February 21, 2012By Kim Krisberg
Friday wasn't a great day for public health.
That day, Congress voted to raid the Affordable Care Act's Prevention and Public Health Fund to the tune of $5 billion. The move comes as part of a deal to delay scheduled cuts to Medicare physician payment rates and was part of a legislative package to extend the payroll tax cut and unemployment benefits. Both the Senate and House voted by wide margins to pass the bill, and President Obama is expected to sign it.
Of course, this was hardly the intent of the Prevention and Public Health Fund, which was created via the Affordable…
lborkowski | February 20, 2012by Kim Krisberg
Amanda DeSimpelare was always interested in science, but she was wary of what a career in the field would be like. She pictured herself being tucked away in a laboratory all day. It wasn't too appealing.
Then, in the summer of 2010, she discovered public health.
"When I pictured science before, I pictured it happening in a lab somewhere," said the 18-year-old college freshman. "But I'd rather be out talking with people and working directly with the public. Then I came to camp and realized that you can connect science and data collection while working directly with people."…
cmonforton | February 17, 2012"What's taking so long?" might be uttered by a youngster waiting for a parent to assemble a swing set, or an art patron waiting for a conservator to restore a masterpiece. When the wait is finally over and the eager child or art lover see the final product, they realize the time was well spent.
Public health and worker safety advocates have been asking "what's taking so long?" for the White House's Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to complete a review of a draft occupational health standard. A 1993 Executive Order gives OMB's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) authority…
lborkowski | February 16, 2012by Elizabeth Grossman
What's being called the first-ever such criminal conviction, an Italian court has returned a guilty verdict against owners of Eternit, the Switzerland-based building materials company. Two weeks ago, W.R. Grace announced its bankruptcy case settlement for the residents of Libby, Montana where the company's vermiculite plant exposed residents to deadly asbestos fibers for decades. While more than 40 countries, including Italy, have banned asbestos use, it remains legal in the US. An effort by the US Department of Justice hold W.R. Grace criminally liable for the Libby…
lborkowski | February 15, 2012Everyone should read the personal story by Kevin Zelnio, a marine biologist and blogger at EvoEcoLab, about his son's recent medical emergency. Having a six-year-old child whose flulike symptoms turn into a struggle to breathe must be scary enough -- but this family's troubles are compounded by not having health insurance.
Zelnio is self-employed, and he and has wife have been unable to find affordable insurance for themselves and their two children. He cites uninsurance as one reason why they didn't bring their son to an urgent care facility as soon as his fever reached 103. They did get…
cmonforton | February 14, 2012The world's largest producer and supplier of beryllium and workers exposed to the highly toxic mineral decided not to wait any longer for federal OSHA to draft a proposed worker safety rule on the hazard. Last week, the United Steelworkers International Union and Materion Brush (the only U.S. manufacturer) sent the complete text of a draft regulation to the head of Labor Department's Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA). Individuals exposed to the metal may become immunologically sensitized to it, and develop a unique disabling, chronic lung disease. Beryllium is also…
lborkowski | February 13, 2012Most readers are probably aware that tomorrow, 2/14, is Valentine's Day, but do you know what's significant about 2/13? It's not a cue to buy chocolates -- it's a reminder that federal law only requires restaurants to pay their workers an hourly wage of $2.13. That minimum hasn't been raised since 1991; if it had been adjusted for inflation since then, it would now be $4.89.
The Restaurant Opportunities Center has conducted several restaurant-worker surveys to document issues with wages and working conditions in the restaurant industry. They've found the following:
The restaurant industry is…