You are currently browsing the monthly archive for February, 2007.
As long as the U.S. system has employers bearing the brunt of soaring health insurance costs (or avoiding them by not offering coverage at all), workers, companies, and even charities will be trying out different approaches to affording healthcare. Here are a few approaches that have made the news recently:
There were a few stories in the news this week related to items from previous Occupational Health News Roundups:
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By David Michaels
This is how it always works. A leading medical journal publishes a study saying a commercial product may be dangerous, perhaps even killing people. The trade association representing the manufacturers quickly attacks the study (preferably in the same news cycle), accusing the scientists of incompetence or worse.
The latest issue of the Journal of The American Medical Association (JAMA) includes a study that links that use of antioxidants (beta carotene, vitamin A, and vitamin E) with increased mortality. The issue was published today. Yesterday, the Council for Responsible Nutrition, the diet supplement industry’s trade association, issued a scathing press release, calling the study “muddled” and based on an “unsound scientific approach.”
The press release worked. The press coverage of the JAMA article included the trade association’s disparaging comments. The Washington Post quotes the Council for Responsible Nutrition’s Andrew Shao: “The message to the average consumer is: Don’t pay attention to this. This doesn’t apply to you.”
By Liz Borkowski
Last week, the Project on Scientific Knowledge and Public Policy (SKAPP) held a panel discussion on the FDA featuring four former FDA Commissioners. While all of the panelists made a point of saying that there are a lot of wonderful people working at the FDA, they also acknowledged that the agency has some serious issues that must be addressed.
David Kessler, MD (FDA Commissioner from 1990 – 1997) remarked that being at the event was “in some ways very bittersweet.” He reflected:
Mike Hendricks from the Kansas City Star notes in a recent article that all-too-often, trench collapses happen when “work crews take shortcuts because they’re in a hurry or think a trench box interferes with the job they’re doing.”
While it may be true that workers are “cutting corners” to finish the job they are assigned to do, blaming the workers ignores the 800 pound gorilla in the room.
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The House Education and Labor Committee, chaired by George Miller (D-CA), issued a progress report on MSHA’s implementation of the MINER Act of 2006. The report says implementation by the agency and mining industry of certain provisions of the new law are “proceeding too slowly,” including inadequate application of underground communication and tracking devices. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s blog “The Gavel” quickly linked to the report and provides some politico-historical context. For me, the most promising aspect of the report is the Committee and staff’s appreciation for the multitude of other health and safety hazards faced by miners, not just those associated with the tragic disasters in January 2006 at the Sago and Alma mines. Read the rest of this entry »
By David Michaels
The handcuffs President Bush recently imposed on regulatory agencies continue to be the focus of public attention. (We’ve compiled a listing of posts on the Executive Order and its nefarious implications). Members of Congress, along with public health and environmental advocates, are now considering legislative approaches to overturning these new requirements.
Media attention is criticial for building political will to address this issue. Robert Pear’s New York Times piece (subscription-only access) drew attention to the Executive Order’s implications, and a now we’re beginning to see articles that examine the specific kinds of agency activities likely to suffer.
This week, two Senate Committees will focus attention on worker safety and health topics. On Wednesday, February 28, Senator Tom Harkin’s Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, HHS and Education will receive testimony on “Improving Mine Safety: One Year after Sago and Alma.” On Thursday, March 1, Senator Patty Murray’s Subcommittee on Employment and Workplace Safety of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee will hold a hearing entitled “Asbestos: Still Lethal, Still Legal: The Need to Better Protect the Health of American Workers and Their Families.”
Dr. Tony Robbins recent response to my draft on OSHA at 35 makes the important point that economic developments are often more powerful than public health initiatives as determinants of environmental and occupational illness. I agree with his thought that predictive models of exposure might facilitate anticipatory public health strategies rather than our more typical efforts to catch up after the fact. It is with this in mind that we need to focus on forward looking ideas rather than dwelling on the frustration that comes from a close look at worker protection in the OSHA years. Here are three. Read the rest of this entry »
Christopher Thomas needed to make some extra money. The 51-year old welder—also a husband and father of two—had begun work in the GMD Shipyard in Brooklyn Navy Yard about a week before. It was mid-morning on a Saturday—his day off—but Thomas had come into work anyway. Read the rest of this entry »
Pharmaceuticals seem to be a big topic in the blogosphere this week. Roy M. Poses MD at Health Care Renewal has more on the Zyprexa memos – which, if you haven’t been following this issue, reportedly show that manufacturer Eli Lilly suppressed information about this schizophrenia drug’s harmful side effects. Abel Pharmboy at Terra Sigillata reports on the perils of buying drugs online (and, in a post from last week, he worries about the number of people Googling DCA), and Orac at Respectful Insolence delves into the topic of experimental drug availability.
As has been the trend recently, there are also lots of interesting posts related to climate change. Gar Lipow at Gristmill examines emission trading’s mixed record; Juliane Fry at RealClimate explains the least understood component of the climate system; Joel Makower at Two Steps Forward recaps the many steps taken around climate change over the past 50 days; and Tim Lambert at Deltoid fact-checks a Wall Street Journal op-ed on global warming and DDT.
In other news …
