You are currently browsing the monthly archive for June, 2007.
Climate change is a big issue in DC these days, and the folks at Gristmill are following the drama. David Roberts updates us on some of the recent developments in Congress, Kate Sheppard tracks efforts to eliminate tax breaks for Hummer purchases, and Van Jones applauds the House Education and Labor Committee’s passage of the “Green Jobs Act of 2007.” They’re also looking at strategies: Sean Casten advises reframing investment in renewables as leveling the playing field, and David Roberts wonders whether it’s wise to demonize House Energy and Commerce Committee Chair John Dingell.
Over at Shifting Baselines, Jack Stern lets us know about ocean-related legislation Congress is set to take up.
Elsewhere, there’s plenty of non-DC-centric blogging:
MSHA’s Assistant Secretary announced that he is creating an Office of Accountability to provide
“enhanced oversight, at the highest level in the agency, to ensure that we are doing our utmost to enforce safety and health laws in our nation’s mines.”
The announcement came with the release of three internal investigation reports which Asst. Sec. Stickler said
“identified a number of deficiencies in our enforcement programs, which I found deeply disturbing.”
My colleague Celeste Monforton has just posted a new case study at DefendingScience.org, and it’s worth a read for anyone interested in industry attempts to bury information about products’ potential harmful effects.
The American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists (ACGIH) is a private, not-for-profit, professional organization for practitioners in the field of workplace and environmental health and safety. Since 1946, ACGIH committees have studied substances to which workers are exposed and recommended Threshold Limit Values (TLVs), which are akin to exposure limits.
The reason ACGIH has come under fire is basically that it has filled a void left by OSHA inactivity – and some industries would rather see that void be left empty.
As Dick Clapp wrote earlier this month, Rachel Carson’s critics have used the 100th anniversary of her birth as an occasion to attack the influential environmental author. In the New York Times, columnist John Tierney (sub only) called Carson’s classic work Silent Spring “a hodgepodge of science and junk science.” Barry Commoner, himself an author of landmark books on ecology, wrote a response to the Times, and has given us permission to post it here. -Liz Borkowski
To the Editor:
John Tierney’s rehash (Science Times, June 5, 2007) of the long discredited arguments against the 1972 law banning the use of DDT in the U.S. is a malicious attack on Rachel Carson’s classic work, “Silent Spring,” where she concluded that cancer incidence is largely due to synthetic organic chemicals rather than to naturally occurring ones. Tierney’s evidence that natural compounds are “as likely to be carcinogenic as synthetic ones” is directly contradicted by a comprehensive review of data from five international cancer agencies recently reported in the American Cancer Society’s journal CANCER. By checking this study’s list of chemicals that cause breast cancer in laboratory animals against the Combined Chemical Dictionary (a database distinguishing synthetic and natural organic chemicals), I find that of the total 212 organic chemicals, 203 are synthetic and only 9 are produced by living things. In calling “Silent Spring” a “hodgepodge of science and junk science,” Mr. Tierney has produced a shameful display of junk journalism.
Barry Commoner, Senior Scientist
CBNS, Queens College, CUNY
In the Chinese provinces of Henan and Shanxi, police have raided 7,500 brick kilns and rescued hundreds of slave laborers, many of them children. Victims were kidnapped or entrapped with offers of work and then sold into slavery; officials report arresting 250 people for the crimes. Jane Macartney of The Times describes the horrific conditions at the kilns:
The children, some as young as 8, worked in brick kilns for 16 hours a day with meagre food rations. They were guarded by fierce dogs and thugs who beat their prisoners at will. [...]
They lived in squalid conditions with many adult workers, sleeping on filthy quilts on layers of bricks inside the brickworks, with the doors sealed from the outside with padlocks and the windows barred with pieces of wood.
Many children had festering wounds on their black feet and around their waists, apparently from burns. Some were even beaten to death by their guards.
Local officials apparently ignored pleas and protests from family members of missing children, and the raids only occurred after 400 parents posted a letter on the internet.
Others recent news highlights risky working conditions in several specific industries:
By Peter Lurie, MD, MPH, Deputy Director, Public Citizen’s Health Research Group
Dr. Lurie is a contributor to Public Citizen’s drug newsletter, available at www.worstpills.org. He will present testimony on state doctor gift disclosure laws before the Senate Special Committee on Aging on Wednesday, June 27, 2007. This article originally appeared in the May 2007 issue of Public Citizen’s Health Letter.
The life of a doctor must be tough. To judge by most of their offices, doctors are unable to afford pens, mugs, refrigerator magnets, or pads of paper. Even lunch is beyond their reach, it seems. And dinner at a fancy downtown restaurant? Fuhgeddaboutit.
Fortunately, there’s a group willing to step into the breach and supply these missing morsels and amenities. You guessed it: the pharmaceutical industry.
Despite the growing prevalence of direct-to-consumer advertising on television ($4.2 billion in 2005), the pharmaceutical industry continues to lavish the lion’s share of its advertising budget on physicians ($7.2 billion, excluding the ubiquitous free samples). After all, it is the physician who wields the power of the prescription pen.
Somehow, doctors operate under the delusion that the pharmaceutical industry is misguided enough to squander close to $20 billion on promotion annually even though, according to many doctors’ reasoning, all this largesse has no influence upon their prescribing habits. Much research suggests otherwise. When doctors were sent on expensive junkets to exotic locales, purportedly to receive objective education on a drug or disease, researchers noticed that prescribing of the sponsoring drug companies’ products went up in those doctors’ hospitals upon their return. Doctors accepting gifts from drug companies are more likely to request that their hospital add drugs to the hospital’s formulary, its list of preferred drugs.
Some people have had enough. Recently, a number of prominent medical schools, including Stanford, Yale, and the University of Pennsylvania, have sharply limited interactions between their physicians and pharmaceutical representatives. And now states are getting in on the action.
By Liz Borkowski
When EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson announced last week that the agency would lower the limit for ground-level ozone pollution, he acknowledged that the current standard of 0.08 parts per million was insufficiently protective of public health. This was an appropriate rationale for changing the limit, since the EPA is required to establish air quality standards exclusively on the basis of health consideration. The proposal of 0.07 – 0.075 ppm isn’t as low as the 0.06 – 0.07 ppm that the agency’s Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee recommended (PDF), but at least it’s an improvement.
On the other hand, the EPA press release states that “EPA also is taking comments on alternative standards within a range from 0.060 ppm up to the level of the current 8-hour ozone standard, which is 0.08 ppm.” (Comments will be accepted for 90 days.) The Washington Post reports on the reasoning:
Last Wednesday, June 20, I learned from a newspaper reporter that a gold miner was missing at the Newmont company’s Midas mine near Winnemucca, Nevada. I checked MSHA’s website, but nothing was posted about the accident. No problem, I’ll cut them some slack. Maybe within 24 hours they’d provide some details. Read the rest of this entry »
Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) will chair a hearing today (June 25) on the federal government’s failure to protect workers’ and residents’ health from the toxic dust cloud created in NYC after the September 11, 2001 attacks. The premiere witness will be Christine Todd Whitman, who was EPA administrator at the time of the attacks and reported that the air was safe to breathe. Former OSHA Asst. Secretary John Henshaw will also testify, and hopefully will be questioned pointedly by subcommittee members on why the Administration decided to forego enforcing critically important worker protection standards, such as respiratory protection. Read the rest of this entry »
Louisville-Courier Journal reporters Laura Unger and Ralph Dunlop offer us the voices and faces of miners who are suffering from coal workers’ pneumoconiosis. Their special report, Black Lung: Dust Hasn’t Settled on Deadly Disease, includes an on-line version which features five compelling videos featuring 40- and 50-year old coal miners who are now suffering with the disabling lung disease. Mr. Danny Hall, 56, for example, who is still severely impaired despite receiving a lung transplant says “if I had to do over, I wouldn’t ever go into coal mining.”
Declan Butler, Reporter updates us on the situation of the six health workers facing death in Libya. The five Bulgarian nurses and Palestinian medic were sentenced to death on the charge of deliberately infecting Libyan children with HIV, despite scientific evidence that the infections resulted from hygiene lapses and contamination of medical material. Butler reports that Libya’s Supreme Court will rule on the health workers’ appeal on July 11th and that the EU is working towards a settlement with the Libyan children’s families. He credits campaigns by scientists and others (in which Butler himself played an important role) with spurring diplomatic activity on the case, and is cautiously optimistic about a resolution. (Hat tip to Revere at Effect Measure for the link.)
Bloggers have also had their eyes on Capitol Hill this week:
- Ed Silverman at Pharmalot gives a rundown on the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s markup of the PDUFA bill on drug review and safety, while Merrill Goozner at GoozNews laments what’s missing from it. In other FDA news, The Olive Ridley Crawl gives the agency 1.5 cheers for its final rule on dietary supplements.
- Senator John Kerry blogs at Gristmill about the process of getting the energy bill through the Senate, while Matt Madia at Reg Watch warns about a damaging provision in the bill that’s gotten little attention.
- Ellen Marshall at RH Reality Check hails the House’s passage of a measure that will provide contraceptives to overseas organizations that have been denied aid because of their stance on abortion (under the Mexico City Policy, also known as the Global Gag Rule).
Elsewhere:
by Les Boden
I’m going to answer this question. But before I do, I’m going to have to explain a few things about (ugh!) insurance.
With a bipartisan voice vote yesterday, the House Education and Labor Committee approved a bill that would force OSHA to regulate workers’ exposure to diacetyl. Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey, chair of the Subcommittee on Workforce Protections and chief sponsor of the legislation, commented:
What’s troubling is that if OSHA had taken action in a timely manner, we would not need to pass a bill to require OSHA to do something that it should have done a long time ago. …While OSHA has ignored the warnings of NIOSH and others concerning this devastating disease, workers have become sick and disabled, and several have died, all in an astonishingly short period of time. That’s why this legislation is so important - it will save lives.
For more information, see our post on the legislation or past posts on diacetyl.
By David Michaels
Lifelines Online, the safety and health publication of the Laborers’ Health and Safety Fund of North America, is publicizing some important videos – dealing with the history of occupational health and safety in the U.S., industrial hygiene pioneer Alice Hamilton, and the lung disease silicosis – that are now available for free online viewing. I’ve added recommendations of videos on a pesticide that sterilizes workers and on asbestos that are also well worth viewing and sharing, particularly if you’re an educator or leader of a group that deals with occupational health. Read the rest of this entry »
Following up on their investigative series on conditions at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center, the Washington Post’s Dana Priest and Anne Hull have written a series of wrenching articles on veterans returning from Iraq with post-traumatic stress disorder. Bureaucratic confusion and a shortage of mental health resources leave many PTSD sufferers with little hope, and the problem is expected to worsen as fighting continues. Visit the series home; find information and resources on PTSD; or read individual articles:
- The War Inside: Troops Are Returning From the Battlefield With Psychological Wounds, But the Mental-Health System That Serves Them Makes Healing Difficult
- Soldier Finds Comfort at Dark Journey’s End: Army Lt. Sylvia Blackwood made it out of Iraq unharmed physically, but as a psychological casualty who would not acknowledge it to herself
- Little Relief on Ward 53: At Walter Reed, Care for Soldiers Struggling With War’s Mental Trauma Is Undermined by Doctor Shortages and Unfocused Methods
In other news:
“As fire fighters, we know the risks of answering the call, but it does not lessen our pain when the worst happens,” said Harold Schaitberger, general president of the Int’l Association of Fire Fighters.
Nine fire fighters, aged 27 to 56, died on June 18 battling a blaze at a furniture warehouse in Charleston, SC. The city’s fire chief said the men died ”doing what they loved to do — fight fires.”
Several members of the U.S. House and Senate introduced bills today to strengthen mine safety and health protections. A statement issued by Congressman George Miller (D-CA) says the bill builds upon the legislation passed in June 2006 called the MINER Act. Read the rest of this entry »
Most public health advocates are probably already aware that U.S. funds for international AIDS relief come with counterproductive strings attached – specifically, requirements that one-third of HIV prevention money go to abstinence-only education and that entities receiving PEPFAR grants explicitly denounce prostitution. (Laurie Garrett’s recent LA Times op-ed provides a good summary of the policies and what’s wrong with them.)
The strings attached to food aid don’t get as much attention, but it’s another situation where U.S. policy overlooks a lifesaving solution while pleasing an influential constituency. In April, a New York Times article by Celia Dugger described the urgent situation in Zambia:
by Revere, cross-posted from Effect Measure
If you’ve ever been to Duluth, Minnesota in the wintertime, at the top of the state on Lake Superior, you know how cold it can get. And if you go another 50 miles up the shore you’ll come to Silver Bay. Also cold. And dangerous in another way. It is a cancer hot spot for perhaps the deadliest cancer we know, mesothelioma. Read the rest of this entry »
Federal Judge Robert C. Chambers, US District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia, ruled in favor of environmental groups in their claim against coal mine operators and practices related to mountaintop removal mining.* This form of surface mining involves blasting off the top of mountains, scooping out the coal, and dumping the unwanted rock and soil into the valley. This waste material often chokes off streams and causes other damage to the communities and the environment in the down-below valleys. The West Virginia Highlands Conservancy, Coal River Mountain Watch, and the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition, applauded the judge’s ruling, the second time the judge ruled in favor of the environmental groups’ efforts to stop mountain-top mining (MTM).
By David Michaels
Seventy years ago, economist John Maynard Keynes predicted that his grandchildren’s generation would enjoy three-hour workdays. Instead, a new study reports, one in five workers worldwide logs “excessive” hours.
The study, Working Time Around the World, reviews global working time issues, including national laws and working time policies, trends in actual working hours, the specific experiences of different economic sectors and different types of workers, and the implications for working time policies. Authors Seangheon Lee, Deirdre McCann, and Jon C. Messenger of the International Labour Organization examine working time in over 50 countries, with an emphasis on exploring implications for working-time policies in developing and transition countries. The study’s most sobering estimate is that 22% of the global workforce, or 614.2 million workers, are working more than 48 hours a week. In some countries, a sizable proportion of the workforce work very long hours: Read the rest of this entry »
This week, Congress has been wrestling with the reauthorization of the Prescription Drug User Fee Act; Merrill Goozner at GoozNews reports from Capitol Hill about the questions that FDA Acting Deputy Commissioner for Policy Randall Lutter couldn’t answer at a hearing and about the provisions that should be in the bill but aren’t. Matt Madia at Reg Watch reports that FDA drafted the bill for Congress after numerous meetings with pharmaceutical industry representatives. (Check out our past posts on PDUFA for background.) Meanwhile, Bill Miller at DeSmogBlog notes that pharmaceutical companies may profit as the world warms.
For some good news, we can turn to Angry Toxicologist, who tells us that dioxin levels in the U.K. are dropping, and Laura Lindberg at RH Reality Check, who reports that teen males have become less sexually active and much more likely to use condoms since the late 1980s (the news in the post about sex education and reproductive health services is gloomy, though).
Elsewhere:
By David Michaels
The National Football League, like many trade associations, has been disputing the long-term risks associated with employment in that industry. We’ve written about the league’s Committee on Mild Traumatic Brain Injury, supposedly independent but in fact dominated by individuals who work for NFL teams or the league itself. The Concussion Commission has been accused of downplaying the long term risks of football-induced brain injury. (Also see this post about one star running back’s fight with the NFL for work-related disability payments.)
Now Alan Schwarz, who has been covering the issue for the New York Times, has a report on new evidence of the terrible and previously hidden effects of football injuries on the brain. Read the rest of this entry »
MSHA issued a news release yesterday announcing that eight mine operators have been put on notice for potential enforcement under the “pattern of violation” provisions of the Mine Act. MSHA’s release does not list the names of the mining operations, but the Charleston Gazette’s Ken Ward is reporting that two of the mines are metal/non-metal operations and six are coal mines, including three in West Virginia.
By Ruthann Rudel and Dick Clapp
Two recent papers by Ruthann Rudel and Julia Brody published in the journal Cancer compiled a list of 216 chemicals shown to cause mammary gland tumors in animal studies and presented a comprehensive state-of-the-science review of environmental factors in breast cancer. When such important studies are published, it’s typical for the chemical industry or its surrogates to attack them. In this case, Elizabeth Whelan, president of the industry-backed American Council on Science and Health, fired off a response that questioned whether findings from animal cancer studies are relevant to human cancer risk. Like many who discount current animal cancer studies, though, Whelan didn’t call for something better; instead, she suggested that better peer review would have kept these papers out of the scientific literature.
Of course, these two papers had already been through a rigorous peer-review process involving scientists knowledgeable about cancer. Presumably these scientists were aware of something that most scientists understand: We must rely on animal cancer studies because they are the only thing standing between us and a lot more exposure to chemicals that might cause cancer in humans.
As David Michaels reported earlier today, Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey has introduced legislation that would force OSHA to issue standards for occupational exposure to diacetyl (an interim standard within 90 days and a final standard within two years). This artificial butter-flavoring substance has been linked to severe lung disease in workers exposed to it in airborne form. Workers from flavoring, microwave popcorn, and other food manufacturers have become ill, many after only a year or two of exposure.
As with other pressing issues, California’s legislature has decided not to wait for the federal government to act. A bill to prohibit the use of diacetyl in California workplaces, introduced by California Assemblywoman Sally Lieber, passed the state’s Assembly on June 4th.
In other news:
By David Michaels
The simple, powerful statement on the website of FEMA, The Flavor and Extract Manufacturers Association of the United States, summarizing the trade association’s position:
The Flavor and Extract Manufacturers Association of the United States supports H.R.2693, legislation to assure workplace safety in flavor manufacturing.
Thank you FEMA. Read their press release here.
David Michaels heads the Project on Scientific Knowledge and Public Policy (SKAPP) and is Professor and Associate Chairman in the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health, the George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services.
By David Michaels
Regular readers of this blog are probably aware of the many workplace hazards that OSHA has failed to address, including silica, beryllium, and, of course, diacetyl – the artificial butter-flavoring chemical that’s associated with severe lung disease in workers at flavoring, food, and microwave popcorn plants. (Click here for our past posts on the subject.)
Today, Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey has introduced legislation that would force OSHA to issue a standard protecting workers exposed to diacetyl. We fully support the bill, but the fact that it is needed at all highlights OSHA’s tragic failure to safeguard the health and safety of American workers.
H.R. 2693 would give OSHA 90 days to issue an interim final standard that would include measures to minimize workers’ diacetyl exposure, and two years to issue a final standard containing a permissible exposure limit and controlling exposure to diacetyl to the lowest feasible level. Some at the agency may complain that this timeline is too short, but quick action is warranted when a clearly identified hazard is leaving workers with a debilitating illness, in some cases after only a year or two of exposure.
It’s also useful to remember that OSHA has had several opportunities over the past years to address this problem, and has instead chosen to ignore it. Here are a few items from the diacetyl timeline: Read the rest of this entry »
The Houston Chronicle is reporting that over the next two years, OSHA will be sending 300 federal inspectors to petroleum refineries to evaluate operators processes for handling hazardous chemicals. This announcement comes after the Chemical Safety Board (CSB) issued its comprehensive investigation report of the BP Texas City refinery explosion which took the lives of 15 people and injured 180 other individuals. An earlier story by the Chronicle noted OSHA officials’ displeasure with the CSB’s criticism.
Tomorrow (June 12th), the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee will hold a hearing entitled “An Examination of the Health Effects of Asbestos and Methods of Mitigating Such Impacts.” The first witness listed is Senator Patty Murray, who for the past several years has been pushing to ban asbestos in the U.S.; as chair of the Subcommittee on Employment and Workplace Safety (of the Committee on Health Education, Labor, and Pensions), she held a hearing on asbestos on March 1st.
Tomorrow’s hearing includes a total of nine witnesses:
Given the lack of encouraging global warming developments coming out of the G8 summit, it’s nice to have good news on other topics:
- After a two-year boycott by doctors, authors, and healthcare and peace advocates, Lancet publisher Reed Elsevier has agreed to end its involvement in weapon sales – Grrl Scientist at Living the Scientific Life has the details.
- Revere at Effect Measure notes that, in addition to this piece of good news, Chiquita management has agreed to work towards re-hiring workers who were fired for complaining about exposure to a toxic nematicide and to address plantation working conditions.
- From Jacob Goldstein at the WSJ Health Blog, we learn that U.S. heart disease mortality fell by 50% between 1980 and 2000, due equally to medical treatment and reductions in risk factors.
Also, did you know that today is World Ocean Day, and that June is National Oceans Month in the U.S.? CR McClain at Deep-Sea News has practical tips for reducing our use and consumption of plastic (far too much of which ends up in the oceans), and Carnival of the Blue has a wealth of ocean-related links.
Elsewhere:
Richard Stickler, the Asst. Secretary for MSHA, announced a new educational campaign to increase awareness about black lung disease. This latest initiative comes in response to surveillance data showing newly diagnosed cases of progressive massive fibrosis (PMF) among miners working in Lee County and Wise County, Virginia. Stickler’s “Control the Dust/Prevent Black Lung” campaign, which includes a personal letter sent to each and every underground coal mine operator in the country, is heavy on hand-holding with mine operators. My question:
Mr. Stickler, where’s the stick? Read the rest of this entry »
Over the past few years, millions of formlerly secret internal documents from the tobacco industry have been made public and helped public health advocates learn how Big Tobacco deceived lawmakers and the public about smoking’s health risks.
Wading through all these documents is time-consuming, so the Center for Media and Democracy has launched a TobaccoWiki that will allow people interested in the subject to share their findings online. (A Wiki is basically a tool for online collaboration; see Wikipedia’s explanation to learn more about it.) Here’s their explanation of the project:
Breaking news: Another contract worker has been killed on the job at BP’s Texas City refinery – the site of the deadly 2005 explosion that took 15 workers’ lives. The worker, whose name has not been released, was electrocuted while working on an idle unit that was being reconditioned.
Stress on the job has been in the news lately. Troops serving in Iraq and in other violent conflicts face intense stress daily, and the pressure doesn’t just disappear when they return home. Suicides among veterans who’ve recently returned from Iraq have galvanized some families and veterans’ groups to demand better treatment for veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder and other mental health needs.
In the U.K., a new report focuses on the day-to-day stresses that affect workers. Depression and stress together make up the second largest cause of workers taking time off sick. Employers could help by addressing sources of stress at work – one union leader notes that employees are often expected to take on extra work without additional resources – and also by being aware of signs of ill mental health and providing support before an employee’s condition deteriorates.
In other news:
By Dick Clapp
Rachel Carson has been in the news quite a lot recently, first as the object of a diatribe by a U.S. Senator, and also in a series of news stories commemorating what would have been her 100th birthday last week. Tim Lambert at Deltoid has addressed the false allegations about Carson and DDT, so I will focus on Dan Gardner’s rant (Ottawa Citizen, May 25, 2007) denouncing Rachel Carson and the Prevent Cancer Now coalition spokespeople, Liz Armstrong and Angela Rickman, which was startlingly wrong-headed and riddled with errors.
By Liz Borkowski
In a commentary in the latest issue of JAMA, Sheldon Krimsky (a member of the planning committee for the Project on Scientific Knowledge and Public Policy, and a contributor to this blog) and Tania Simoncelli examine the EPA’s guidelines for testing pesticides on humans and find that the agency is making “a fundamental shift in moral thinking – and a striking departure from the moral codes that have provided the guidance for human experiments.”
OSHA issued an advanced notice of proposed rulemaking (ANPRM) asking for public input for a possible new safety regulation on mechanical power presses. The existing OSHA regulation is based on a 1971 standard issued by the American National Standards Institute. The ANPRM lists 37 specific questions, and the responses provided by commenters will help the agency decide whether and/or in what manner to proceed to proposing a new rule. In announcing the ANPRM, OSHA Asst. Secretary Edwin G. Foulke, Jr. said
“This standard has been around as long as OSHA. …This effort will allow us to address industry consensus standards, technical and cost issues and training, as well as reporting and recordkeeping requirements in our continuing effort to help keep this nation’s working men and women safer at work.”
Comments are due by August 3, 2007.
By David Michaels
The first law of ecology is that everything is related to everything else.
-Barry Commoner
Tomorrow in New York City Barry Commoner’s friends are gathering to celebrate his 90th birthday. In 2007, Barry’s statement on ecology seems obvious if not trite, but that was not the case in 1966, when his landmark book Science and Survival was first published, or even in 1971, with the publication of his best-seller The Closing Circle: Nature, Man, and Technology. Read the rest of this entry »
By Peter Dooley
The stories of injury and illness among workers at the Toyota Georgetown plant (reported in the Washington Post story this past week) remind us all about the plight of workers without representation in their workplace. Facing termination after an injury, being transferred to a less desirable job or being discriminated against for standing up for basic rights are daily occurrences in workplaces without unions or contracts to challenge a company’s one-party system of management. Health and safety is the clearest example of how this lack of representation becomes an infringement of human rights. Read the rest of this entry »
The editors at the Charleston Gazette and the Louisville Courier-Journal deserve a pat on the back for allowing their reporters to follow-up on worker safety and health stories. Ken Ward at the Charleston Gazette is still covering important matters related to MSHA and the Sago mine, more than 15 months after the terrible January 2, 2006 disaster. In “MSHA citations detail Sago problems” (June 3) he describes 169 pages of citations released by MSHA because of a Freedom of Information Act request. Likewise, the story by Ralph Dunlop at the Louisville Courier-Journal “Mine scrutiny minimal despite record” (June 3) reports that the Stillhouse Mine No. 1 has received only the minimum number of required inspections despite the mine operator’s history of reckless disregard for mine safety regulations.
I suspect most newspaper editors are quick to say “we’ve already done lots of stories on mine safety.” Meaning, once the gruesome headlines and grieving widows are gone, so are the reporters. But not Ward, and not Dunlop. To you editors, whoever you are, thank you.
When a man with extremely drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB) is told not to board a plane and then does so anyway, you have to expect the public health bloggers to come out in force. Tara C. Smith at Aetiology has been on top of this from the start, first laying out the story, then explaining its implications, and finally letting readers know why indignation is necessary for responding to a case like this. Revere at Effect Measure explores the legal angle of isolation and quarantine, and provides details about air circulation in aircraft cabins; that blog also features a post about XDR-TB that was published just before this news hit the wires. The Examining Room of Dr. Charles and Cervantes at Stayin’ Alive chide us for focusing on the threat of contracting XDR-TB when we should be concerned about larger problems, and N=1 at Universal Health suggests that this kind of communicable disease problem might increase the U.S. demand for universal healthcare.
In a lead-up to the June 13th Leadership Forum on Pandemic Preparedness the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is hosting a Pandemic Flu Leadership Blog. During its first week, bloggers – including Greg Dworking, founding editor of the Flu Wiki and Flu Wiki Forum – focused on the need to prepare; now, they’re looking at the roles different kinds of leaders can and should play.
Elsewhere:
Caution: Put down your fork before reading this post.
In a recent op-ed published in the Baltimore Sun, colleagues at Johns Hopkins University put in perspective the recent revelations about contaminated animal feed imported from China.
…we should be at least as concerned about the “business as usual” ingredients that are routinely fed to the animals we eat…[which are] produced within an industrial system reliant on feeds that include…chicken manure, factory wastes, plastics, and cyanuric acid—all deemed acceptable ingredients in feed for animals that end up on our dinner tables.
