You are currently browsing the monthly archive for September, 2007.
Before this week’s climate conference began, Climate Progress predicted, “The Bush Administration will use every opportunity to create the illusion of action without agreeing to meaningful, binding pollution reductions.” Today, that blog reports that Bush followed “the Frank Luntz playbook on how to seem like you care about the climate when you don’t,” while Bill Miller of DeSmogBlog describes it as “another opportunity lost to histrionics and political posturing.” David Roberts at Gristmill focuses his attention on the media coverage of the event, giving kudos to Washington Post reporters and finding humor in an LA Times piece. Hill Heat has links to even more blogger coverage.
FDA was also in the news this week. Angry Toxicologist is disgusted with the FDA’s record on auditing clinical trials and conducting food inspections. Ed Silverman at Pharmalot reports on drug contamination and the FDA’s plans to issue guidance on the matter. Anna Wilde Matthews at the WSJ Health Blog suggests that the shuffling of top FDA personnel may help the Bush administration avoid new complaints from Democrats.
Elsewhere:
The Senate HELP Committee is holding a hearing on Tuesday, Oct. 2 on “Current Mine Safety Disasters: Issues and Challenges.” The witness list includes the same familiar faces from MSHA, NIOSH, the UMWA and National Mining Association, but the Committee has also invited two “newcomers” to these mine safety hearings. One is former MSHA engineer Robert Ferriter (now with the Colorado School of Mines), who received some publicity in the wake of the Crandall Canyon disaster when he was critical of MSHA’s approval of the Murray Energy’s mining plan. The other is Joseph Osterman of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), who is expected to provide information on his agency’s Family Assistance Program for Aviation Disasters. At a Sept. 5th hearing on the Crandall Canyon disaster held by Senator Harkin’s subcommittee on appropriations, Senator Patty Murray (D-WA) mentioned the NTSB as a possible model for MSHA to follow to improve its procedures for communicating and providing support to family members of mining disasters.
While the House of Representatives was voting Wednesday to approve the Popcorn Workers Lung Disease Prevention Act (here), OSHA’s Assistant Secretary Edwin Foulke had just mailed a letter rejecting a petition from a group of workers’ who’d asked for emergency protection from the respiratory hazards caused by butter-flavoring agents. Mr. Foulke’s response is not only tardy—it took them 14 months to write a 5-page letter—but its content is insulting. “I assure you that OSHA takes the concerns you expressed very seriously,” he writes. Oh, please. Your meager actions to protect diacetyl-exposed workers speaks volumes. Are we supposed to be impressed by your revelation that OSHA has “evaluated workplace exposure conditions at site visits to three microwave popcorn plants over the last 8 months”? Three plants in eight months? And then to use this paltry information to state
“Thus, OSHA does not have sufficient evidence that a grave danger currently exists in microwave popcorn manufacturing facilities to support the issuance of an emergency temporary standard (ETS) for diacetyl.”
If severely injured workers waiting for lung transplants does not constitute a hazard of a grave nature, what does?
By Kristen Perosino
Is FDA on the road to recovery? Will public confidence in the agency be restored?
In what is bound to be an interesting policy address (not to mention well-timed, as the recently passed FDA Amendments Act of 2007 awaits Bush’s signature), Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) is scheduled to present her vision of “The Future of the FDA” on Wednesday, October 3rd at George Washington University.
She’s quite an important figure for the agency. As Chair of the House Appropriations subcommittee that funds FDA, DeLauro is influential in determining resource allocations to FDA programs. She demonstrated her clout earlier this year, for example, when FDA was rumored to cut funding for the Office of Women’s Health. DeLauro voiced her opposition and challenged Commissioner von Eschenbach to explain any such decision. FDA eventually maintained funding levels for the office after pressure from DeLauro and many women’s rights advocates. Translation: Women’s health is important to DeLauro.
Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) explaining his opposition to H.R. 2693, the Popcorn Workers Lung Disease Prevention Act, which would require OSHA to protect workers from breathing toxic chemicals used in artificial butter flavor:
“If there’s something wrong with popcorn, how did Orville Redenbacher live so long?”
The recent recalls of dangerous toys and defective cribs have received a great deal of press attention, but closer analysis reveals that consumer product recalls are generally ineffective at getting most defective products out of consumers’ homes.
The big news is that the House passed the Popcorn Workers Lung Disease Prevention Act, as David reports below. In other occupational health and safety news:
By David Michaels
Updated Below
By a vote of 260 to 154, the US House of Representatives has passed H.R. 2693, the Popcorn Workers Lung Disease Prevention Act. This was not a pure party line vote - over the objections of the White House and the Chamber of Congress, 47 Republicans voted with the majority, and only 8 Democrats opposed the resolution. The vote demonstrates the widespread recognition that OSHA has failed to protect workers and Congress needs to step in to force the agency to do its job.
Our thanks go out to Education and Labor Committee Chairman George Miller, Workforce Protections Subcommittee Chairman Lynn Woolsey, and the terrific Education and Labor Committee staff.
Please tell your Senators that the Senate needs to pass similar legislation. The Senate phone number is 202.224.3121.
Here’s how they voted: Read the rest of this entry »
By Liz Borkowski
Yesterday, the White House and the OSHA Fairness Coalition (which includes members like the International Food Distributors Association, National Association of Manufacturers, and U.S. Chamber of Commerce) wrote to members of the House of Representatives to express their strong opposition to H.R. 2693, the Popcorn Workers Lung Disease Prevention Act.
No one who’s been following the Bush Administration’s approach to regulation will be surprised to hear that the responses from the White House and business coalition are strikingly similar to one another, and to arguments used in the past by Big Tobacco and other industries seeking to avoid regulation. They both rely on three main arguments that are easily refuted:
By David Michaels
Days before the House will vote on legislation to force OSHA to regulate diacetyl (the artificial butter flavor chemical that causes bronchiolitis obliterans), the agency has apparently decided that perhaps it is finally time to begin the rulemaking process for this substance. Yesterday, fourteen months after we petitioned OSHA for an emergency standard, the agency has called for a stakeholder meeting to discuss how it might address the problem.
Although OSHA’s press release claims that the agency is “initiating rule-making,” if you read the small print, it is clear that OSHA is simply saying it will start collecting information. Given its timing, it is apparent that this is an attempt to preempt legislation that would compel OSHA to issue a standard protecting workers. There is no commitment to anything beyond a single meeting.
We welcome OSHA’s effort to collect information; after all, a group of public health and union activists met with OSHA staff last December and told them to do exactly this.
But Members of Congress should not be fooled. Read the rest of this entry »
By Liz Borkowski
As David Michaels reported yesterday, the Popcorn Workers Lung Disease Prevention Act will come up for a vote in the House some time this week. The legislation will force OSHA to issue a standard that will minimize workers’ exposure to diacetyl, the butter flavoring chemical that’s been causing severe, irreversible lung disease in workers from food and flavoring plants.
Why hasn’t OSHA acted to address diacetyl exposure, even though they’ve known about the problem for several years? It seems that these days, top regulatory-agency officials are more interested in a “voluntary compliance strategy” than in actually, well, regulating.
One of the main problems with the voluntary approach is that it’s very unlikely to convince all of the employers to take the necessary steps. Sure, it didn’t take regulation to get Pop Weaver and ConAgra to announce that they’re removing diacetyl from their microwave popcorn products (perhaps just the prospect of regulation did the trick). On the other hand, Kraft has just provided a timely example of a company that seems to need a more forceful kind of persuasion.
By David Michaels
Later this week, the House of Representatives will vote on H.R. 2693 — The Popcorn Workers Lung Disease Prevention Act. Now is the moment to let your Member of Congress know how important it is for them to support the legislation.
Popcorn Workers Lung is a case study in regulatory failure. As we’ve written many times here, OSHA has ignored this deadly hazard for far too long. At least three workers have died and dozens more have developed irreversible lung disease as a result of exposure to diacetyl.
By David Michaels
Most media coverage of Friday’s announcement by the Consumer Products Safety Commission and a crib manufacturer that one million cribs were being recalled missed the story behind the story. Stung by an avalanche of bad publicity on its failure to protect children from toys with lead paint or dangerous magnets, the CPSC appeared to be getting ahead of the problem, taking action after the death of (only) two infants.
In fact, the CPSC had known about the risk of infant suffocation posed by these cribs for many months, and the Chicago Tribune had been investigating the agency’s unwillingness to do anything about it. Although the CPSC is denying it (see below), it appears that the agency acted only when it looked like it would be embarrassed in the press yet again.
The FDA bill wasn’t the only thing getting health policy types excited this week. Senator Clinton unveiled her healthcare proposal, and provided fodder for bloggers, including: Ezra Klein (here, too) GoozNews, the Numbers Guy, RH Reality Check, and WSJ Health Blog.
Also focusing on the executive branch, Tom Philpott at Gristmill reports on Chuck Connor, who’s played key role in advancing the interests of ADM and other members of the Corn Refiners Association – and who’s now the acting secretary at USDA.
Elsewhere:
A mere nine months after the National Academy of Science told OMB to junk its junk science proposal, the Bush administration is at it again. On Wednesday, OIRA administrator Susan Dudley and OSTP’s associate director Sharon Hays sent a memorandum to all executive agencies. The memo advised that “after carefully evaluating [the] constructive recommendations from the NAS, as well as feedback from rigorous interagency review, and public comments” OMB decided not to issue a final version of its risk assessment bulletin, but instead, to issue a memorandum “to enhance the scientific quality, objectivity, and utility of Agency risk analyses and the complementary objectives of improving efficiency and consistency among the Federal family.”
Translation: Fine, we’ll nix the bulletin, but if you think we’re just going to walk away without getting our two cents in, you’ve got another think coming.
The House and Senate have both passed legislation that renews the FDA’s user-fee system and enacts some important reforms. The process has been rushed because FDA is running dangerously low on funds; President Bush will need to sign the legislation today if the FDA is to avoid sending termination letters to one-fourth of its staff.
First, some background: In 1992, Congress passed the first Prescription Drug User Fee Act (PDUFA) and set up a system in which drug companies pay annual fees and fees for each prescription drug product they market, and these fees help fund the FDA’s process of reviewing new drug applications. PDUFA has to be reauthorized every five years, and advocates of drug safety and scientific integrity – including my colleagues at the Project on Scientific Knowledge and Public Policy – used the 2007 reauthorization process to push for reforms. (Go here or here for more details.) Under the current user-fee system, the FDA has devoted more resources to reviewing new drug applications and meeting new goals for review times, but its post-approval drug safety activities have suffered and some of its reviews have been rushed. Vioxx and other drugs that FDA has approved have turned out to have serious side effects and have been pulled from the market, and a 2006 Institute of Medicine report concluded that the agency needed significant reforms to improve drug safety.
Here are the important steps that the bill takes:
By Dick Clapp
Researchers devote a lot of effort to determining what causes cancer, and their findings can help us treat and prevent the disease. Industries that use and manufacture suspected carcinogens have something to fear, though, if research shows their products or processes to be contributing to cancer in workers or nearby communities. As a result, there has been a three-decade debate about the magnitude of the cancer burden contributed by these sources.
This issue is getting renewed attention because the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) recently released a report on “Attributable causes of cancer in France in year 2000.” This was a collaborative effort with the French Academy of Sciences, several other cancer-related agencies, and a distinguished international group of reviewers. It was begun in 2005 with the intention of updating the frequently-cited estimate of the attributable causes of cancer done by Doll and Peto in 1981, specifically as these estimates applied to France. The report reviews a large literature, goes through a long series of calculations and sensitivity analyses, and comes up with a set of conclusions remarkably similar to those of Doll and Peto’s estimates 26 years earlier. They attribute even smaller percentages of cancer due to occupation and “pollution” than did Doll and Peto.
The most surprising aspect of the new IARC report comes in the discussion section, though, where the authors suggest the possibility that low-dose environmental and occupational exposures might actually have decreased cancer incidence in France. In doing so, they invoke the notion of “hormesis.” Say what?
Like microwave-popcorn manufacturers and toy companies, members of the trade group Grocery Manufacturers of America have recognized that it’s not a good thing to have consumers worried about whether their favorite products might kill them. So, they’re asking the FDA to do more to ensure the safety of foods and beverages, and have come out with a specific proposal “to improve the safety of our food imports.” (Domestic foods evidently get a pass for now, despite the E. coli problem.)
As David Michaels pointed out earlier this week, this sudden affinity for regulation isn’t just about shoring up consumer confidence. Industry groups are pushing for relatively weak regulation in an apparent attempt to stave off more stringent rules from the state or local level, and to guard against lawsuits. As one might expect, GMA’s food safety proposal is a step in the right direction but doesn’t go as far as food-safety advocates might wish.
By David Michaels
Congratulations to Ron Melnick! Ron is a senior toxicologist and director of special programs in the Environmental Toxicology Program at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. Since coming to NIEHS as a young toxicologist 36+ years ago, Ron has produced made a huge contribution to our understanding of the health effects of chemical exposures.
Beyond this, Ron has worked tirelessly to ensure that NIEHS science is done in a way that it can be used in developing public health policy, and he has worked equally hard to ensure that policy makers use the best science in setting policy.
We’re congratulating Ron because the American Public Health Association has just announced that he is the winner of the 2007 David P. Rall Award for Advocacy in Public Health “for his outstanding contributions to public health through science-based advocacy.” Read the rest of this entry »
Ground Zero workers are still in the news. Last week, a House Panel heard from Dr. Philip Landrigan of the Mount Sinai School of Medicine about the illnesses these workers suffer from. Earlier this week, several members of New York’s Congressional delegation introduced the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act, which would would establish a long-term program to provide a broad range of physical and mental health services to Ground Zero workers.
In other news:
Yesterday, the University of California at Irvine announced that it was reappointing Erwin Chemerinsky as dean of its new law school. Chemerinsky had been offered the job, but then the University withdrew the offer after the LA Times published a Chemerinsky op-ed critical of the Bush administration. After an outcry from scholars and an in-depth conversation between Chemerinsky and UC Irvine Chancellor Michael Drake, Chemerinsky was re-offered the position.
This incident has spawned 163 news articles (according to Google News), while another case involving academic freedom gets far less attention. Goldie Blumenstyk reports in the Chronicle of Higher Education:
California often takes the lead in responding to public health issues, so it’s not surprising that their state legislature was the first to take up a bill to ban the artificial butter flavoring chemical diacetyl from California workplaces by 2010. California is home to 29 flavoring plants, and state health officials have diagnosed several flavoring workers with bronchiolitis obliterans, the debilitating lung disease that strikes many young, otherwise healthy workers who are exposed to diacetyl on the job.
State Assemblywoman Sally Lieber introduced the diacetyl legislation in February, and Senator Joseph Simitian followed with a similar bill in the state’s Senate. Yesterday, the Senate bill was up for a vote, and it looked like it would fail until two Democrats swung their votes to support it. Then, as the Sacramento Bee’s Shane Goldmacher reports, things took a couple of unexpected turns:
by Liz Borkowski
Bush appointees and polluting industries may oppose states’ attempts to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, but courts have been ruling in states’ favor. In April, the Supreme Court found that EPA, contrary to its insistence, does in fact have the authority to regulate carbon dioxide emissions. Last week, a federal judge upheld a Vermont law establishing reduced greenhouse gas emission standards for new cars sold in that state.
Like the Supreme Court justices, U.S. District Judge William Sessions found that state efforts to regulate greenhouse gas emissions are perfectly in line with what Congress intended when it passed the relevant legislation – and he also didn’t buy assertions by the auto-industry plaintiffs that Vermont’s law would spell disaster for consumers and auto workers.
By David Michaels
Updated Below
The lead story in today’s New York Times reports something we’ve been writing about here at the Pump Handle for quite some time (here and here and here, for example): responsible corporations recognize the need for public health and environmental regulation.
In industry and after industry, corporations and trade associations are asking the Bush Administration for regulation. In some of these cases industry has realized that voluntary regulation has failed, and without mandatory regulation, consumers will reject their product. But some of the push for federal regulation is to pre-empt more stringent state or local regulation, or eliminate law suits against polluters or manufacturers of dangerous products. Read the rest of this entry »
Journalists and editors were in the spotlight this week. At the Society of Environmental Journalists conference, attendees grappled with journalists’ role in covering climate change; Robert McClure at Dateline Earth and Richard Littlemore at DeSmogBlog report. Tara C. Smith at Aetiology highlights one cringe-inducing example of a newspaper getting an important statistic wrong, while Revere at Effect Measure criticizes newspapers’ failure to correct factual errors.
Bloggers also pointed out public health-related calendar items: Gloria Feldt at RH Reality Check reminds us to celebrate Margaret Sanger’s birthday (today, 9/14); Grrl Scientist at Living the Scientific Life provides important information for World Suicide Prevention Day (9/10); Tara C. Smith at Aetiology tells us why we should care about World Rabies Day (9/8); and the folks at Deep Sea News have declared this week Microbe Week (“shark week for geeks”).
Elsewhere:
By Susan F. Wood, PhD
Two things appear to be major bones of contention in determining the final version of what is now named the “FDA Revitalization Act of 2007″ (FDARA). And they both related to public transparency and public accountability.
On March 23, 2005 a series of explosions ripped through BP’s Texas City refinery. The disaster claimed the lives of 15 and injured many more. (You can read some of the press coverage here and here.)
Here are a few interesting tidbits fresh from the courtroom where BP lawyers are working to discredit the claims of four workers injured in the blast. These particular cases are the first to reach the courtroom, as at least 1350 of 3000 claims filed against BP have been settled behind closed doors.
In case anyone had any doubts that BP knew of warning signs, read on. Read the rest of this entry »
One of the benefits of blogging at The Pump Handle is connecting with people who have first-hand experience with our nation’s inadequate public health protection system. We’ve heard from parents and wives who appreciate us writing about their loved ones’ fatal on-the-job injuries, and federal employees who share their unique experiences with how scientific information is used (or misused) in public health decision-making. Today, I’d like to introduce you to Mrs. Patty Sebok, who I first “met” a few months ago through a blogpost at Gristmill. We’ve been exchanging emails since then about her work with Judy Bonds at Coal River Mountain Watch, an organization battling powerful economic and powerful Goliaths that which support mountaintop removal mining.
Over the past week, several newspapers and wire services have reported on the story we broke here at The Pump Handle about the first reported case of bronchiolitis obliterans in a microwave popcorn consumer – quickly followed by microwave popcorn manufacturers’ announcements about the removal of diacetyl from their products, and by additional calls from health advocates and members of Congress for federal agencies to address the problem. It’s interesting to look at the different angles from which the various articles approach the topic, and the details they include.
The anniversary of the 9/11 attacks yesterday highlighted the health problems that many rescue, recovery, and cleanup workers and volunteers are facing. Articles in the New York Times, Newsday, and the New York Sun highlighted workers who’ve developed severe disease over the past six years and lawmakers’ proposals to address the surge in illnesses. Also, if you didn’t see it yesterday, David Michaels’s post here explains how the government has developed special compensation programs in the past and advises how it should proceed in addressing 9/11-related health problems.
On 9/11/07, OSHA issued a request for information “to evaluate what action, if any, the Agency should take to further address emergency response and preparedness.”
Abel Pharmboy at Terra Sigillata has re-posted a moving remembrance of John Michael Griffin, Jr., the Director of Operations at the World Trade Center who died helping dozens of workers escape. If you’ve been moved by other blog posts or news stories in memory of workers who died on 9/11, feel free to post links in the comments section.
In other occupational health and safety news:
The following post is by Dr. David Egilman, a familiar figure to those who have been following the case of Eli Lilly’s schizophrenia drug Zyprexa. See Alex Berenson’s New York Times articles on the case for more background, or read David Michaels’s post about Zyprexa and sequestered science. — Editor
“The Truth is Not Free”
By David Egilman
September 11, 2007
All that is needed for the forces of evil to succeed is for enough good people to remain silent.
– Edmund Burke
The consequences of silence can be devastating. My father spent WWII in a German concentration camp largely as a consequence of silence. In response to the Holocaust, which was facilitated by the silence of a nation, I have devoted much of my professional career to studying and reporting the effects of silence on public health.
Last December, I was subpoenaed for copies of internal documents that I acquired as a consulting witness in litigation against the pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly. I released all of the documents I had, which made their way to The New York Times and became the basis for four major articles. After the Times stories ran, 30 states subpoenaed documents detailing Lilly’s sales, marketing and promotional practices for Zyprexa as part of civil investigations under state consumer protection laws.
By David Michaels
It is time for Congress to enlist the nation’s science and policy experts to help develop a federal workers’ compensation program for 9/11 rescue, recovery, and cleanup workers. The inadequacy of state worker programs led Congress to legislate special compensation programs for uranium miners, and civilian workers in nuclear weapons facilities. We did not require the families of those killed in the terrorist attacks to rely on state workers’ compensation programs. The September 11th Victim Compensation Fund (pdf) provided more than $7 billion to families of the victims. Read the rest of this entry »
By David Michaels
In a few short months, the country has awakened to several potential hazards associated with Chinese toys. Mattel and other manufacturers have already recalled millions of toys, some for lead paint and others because they contained magnets that, if swallowed, could cause severe injuries. Now, Louise Story of New York Times reports that the Walt Disney Company will conduct lead tests on 65,000 toys and other children’s products made by 2,000 companies that license Disney characters.
Things have gotten so bad that toy manufacturers are actually asking for federal regulation. Read the rest of this entry »
By David Michaels
The popcorn festival has just ended in Marion, Ohio (nickname: “popcorn capital of the world”), attended by more than 100,000 revelers. The Orville Redenbacher Parade is one of the festivals’ highlights. Redenbacher, who developed the hybrid corn strain that pops so uniformly, was actually from Indiana, but ConAgra Foods manufactures the best selling microwave popcorn brand “Orville Redenbacher’s” (along with Act II brand) at its factory in Marion.
I didn’t get to the festival, but you can be sure that there was a lot of talk about the first reported case of “popcorn lung” in a consumer, and that ConAgra and other major microwave popcorn manufacturers have decided to eliminate the chemical from their product. I’m sure the town hopes this will mean no more cases of “popcorn lung” there. According to Sabrina Eaton at the Cleveland Plain Dealer, at least 50 workers at the Marion and other Ohio plants have sued flavor manufacturers after developing lung disease they allege to be caused by diacetyl, the primary component of artificial butter flavor.
Now, with disease threatening not just workers but popcorn consumers, the country is awakening to the potential risks of exposure to airborne diacetyl. Exactly one year ago — Sept 8th 2006 — we formally requested the FDA to remove diacetyl from the list of “Generally Recognized As Safe” food additives. The FDA pretty much ignored us. Now, the pressure is rising for the government to take action to protect consumers. Read the rest of this entry »
While we here at The Pump Handle have been focusing on popcorn problems (the big story is here, the latest installment here), other bloggers have been keeping tabs on public health issues in Congress:
- At RH Reality Check, Anika Rahman and Tod Preston explain the Global Gag Rule and why it’s a good thing that Congress has voted to repeal it.
- Lisa Codispodi at Womenstake adds up the numbers behind the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, and Merrill Goozner at GoozNews reports on the financial wrangling behind this important legislation.
- Joseph Romm at Gristmill prepares us for the Energy Bill House vs. Senate Smackdown.
- Benjamin Cohen at The World’s Fair finds Farm Bill insight in a scrawled public comment.
(And, if you haven’t read Susan Wood’s post here on drug safety and the prescription drug bill Congress is in the process of reauthorizing, you should check that out, too.)
Elsewhere in the blogosphere:
By David Michaels
Over a year ago, unions petitioned the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to adopt an emergency temporary standard for diacetyl (PDF). More than 40 leading occupational health physicians and scientists sent a supporting letter (PDF) to Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao summarizing the strong scientific evidence linking exposure to the artificial butter flavoring chemical diacetyl to the lung disease bronchiolitis obliterans. In the more than 13 months during which OSHA has failed to act on this urgent request, further information been published in the peer-reviewed literature linking occupational diacetyl exposure to severe lung disease.
The country is now acutely aware of the hazards of breathing diacetyl, thanks to the case of “popcorn lung” in a popcorn consumer, first reported here at The Pump Handle earlier this week. The airborne diacetyl levels in the home of Wayne Watson, the Colorado furniture salesman with the disease, were comparable to those found in locations in microwave popcorn factories where sick workers had been employed. This led almost immediately to the major popcorn manufacturers pledging to eliminate diacetyl from their artificial butter recipes.
Today, unions and scientists have sent another letter to Secretary Chao to bring the Department of Labor’s attention to the new developments and renew their call for emergency action to protect workers.
What’s changed since the unions petitioned OSHA on diacetyl? Employers in the flavor industry now support an OSHA standard as well. Now, it’s even clearer than before that responsible employers and trade groups need OSHA’s help, and the agency’s continuing inaction only allows irresponsible companies who care little about health and safety to expose their employees to diacetyl. Read the rest of this entry »
By Susan F. Wood, PhD
In an article in the New England Journal of Medicine today, Sheila Weiss Smith points out that the FDA has not been responsive to the Institute of Medicine (IOM) report on Drug Safety. That study and its recommendations took on the question of how to improve our nation’s drug safety system, specifically through regulation by FDA. In her Perspective article, Dr. Smith writes:
In general, the IOM implored the agency to “embrace a culture of safety” by increasing the priority accorded to the safety of patients. Such an emphasis could have ramifications for medical care that would be as broad and positive as those that the 1999 IOM report on medical error, To Err Is Human,2 has had for the health care system. Sadly, the FDA’s official response falls far short of what the American public expects and deserves.
By David Michaels
Earlier this week, we broke the story of the first case of “popcorn lung” occurring in person whose exposure to diacetyl was not workplace-related. Now more details are coming out, including an interview with Wayne Watson, the Colorado furniture salesman with disease. In today’s AP article, P. Solomon Banda writes that
“When Dr. Rose told me, she said: `Mr. Watson, there is a chemical in butter flavored microwave popcorn called diacetyl and it has been known to cause lung disease of this nature, with your symptoms.’ I went, `friggin unbelievable.’”
In many ways, Mr. Watson was very fortunate. By luck, he had been referred to Dr. Cecile Rose, chief occupational and environmental health physician at National Jewish Medical and Research Center. Dr. Rose is one of perhaps a dozen or two physicians in the entire country who have seen cases of popcorn lung. Read the rest of this entry »
Workers who manufacture microwave popcorn for ConAgra and Pop Weaver will soon be able to breathe easier, since both companies have announced that they will stop using diacetyl to flavor their popcorn. Other workers – including those who make flavorings, baked goods, and other companies’ microwave popcorn – may still be exposed to the artificial butter flavoring chemical.
Other occupational health and safety news this week includes:
With summer vacation over and school back in session, my thoughts naturally turn to homework, term papers and due dates. Perhaps if Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao and OSHA’s Asst. Secretary Edwin Foulke viewed their responsibilities to the nation’s workers like students with homework assignments, they’d take more responsibility for completely their assignments well and on time. Right now, OSHA (and the Secretary) seem to treat deadlines like those students who never show up for class, and then expect the teacher to give them an extension.
Last week, Pop Weaver announced that it was eliminating diacetyl from its microwave popcorn products. Today, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and Associated Press report that ConAgra will remove diacetyl from its Orville Redenbacher and Act II microwave popcorn over the next year. This news comes as David Michaels’s post here about federal agencies’ inadequate response to a case of bronchiolitis obliterans in a popcorn consumer has attracted widespread media attention (e.g., from the Associated Press, Denver Post, and Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel).
It’s great to see that popcorn companies are responding to the problem of diacetyl, since federal agencies are reacting slowly and ineffectually. These announcements still prompt us to ask something we’ve asked before, though: What do Pop Weaver and ConAgra know about diacetyl exposure that the public doesn’t?
By David Michaels
Updated Below
For the past several years, news articles and Congressional hearings have reported on a deadly, irreversible lung disease – bronchiolitis obliterans – that is caused by workers’ exposure to food flavoring chemicals, and more specifically by exposure to a butter-flavoring chemical called diacetyl. So far, attention has focused on worker exposure, rather than on possible health problems affecting consumers who pop popcorn in their microwave ovens. That focus may be changing, however, with a warning sent by one of the country’s leading lung disease experts.
The CDC, FDA, OSHA, EPA – federal agencies charged with protecting public health – each received a letter in July alerting them to the possible serious respiratory hazard to consumers who breathe in fumes from their artificially butter-flavored microwave popcorn. The warning should have resulted in some action by these agencies, but instead, they’ve done virtually nothing.
It appears that the Bush Administration’s efforts to destroy the regulatory system are succeeding; the agencies seem unable to mount a response to information that a well-functioning regulatory system would immediately pursue. The agencies aren’t even trying to connect the dots.
In July, Dr. Cecile Rose, the chief occupational and environmental medicine physician at National Jewish Medical and Research Center, the most prestigious lung disease hospital in the country, wrote to the FDA, CDC, EPA and OSHA, informing the agencies of a patient she had recently identified
“with significant lung disease whose clinical findings are similar to those described in affected workers, but whose only inhalational exposure is as a heavy, daily consumer of butter flavored microwave popcorn.”
This letter is a red flag, suggesting that exposure to food flavor chemicals is not just killing workers, but may also be causing disease in people exposed to food flavor chemicals in their kitchens. Read the rest of this entry »
For those of us fortunate enough to have Labor Day off from work, it’s a good time to remember all the workers who can’t take a day off because we rely so heavily on them: hospital staff, police officers, bus drivers, power-company workers, and many others. Then, there are the retail and restaurant workers who clock in on federal holidays because their employers know that many of us will observe Labor Day by going shopping or out to eat.
We owe our current lifestyle not only to the workers who keep us supplied with food, electricity, transportation, healthcare, and other necessities, but to the individual workers and labor unions of the past who fought so hard for eight-hour workdays, safe workplaces, and other benefits that it’s easy to take for granted.
If you’ve got some free time and internet access today, I recommend these four Labor Day readings: At Firedoglake, Tula Connell reminds us of Labor Day’s union roots. In the Philadelphia Inquirer, Peter Dreier notes that unions helped provide us with the economic security to take a three-day weekend, but U.S. workers still have a lot of organizing to do to bring our economic and social wellbeing up to that of our counterparts in other affluent nations. In the LA Times, Duke Helfand and Molly Selvin report that a lack of health benefits and spiraling health care costs are among many full-time workers’ top concerns. For Marketplace, Robert Reich traces the declining public awareness of organized labor over the past few decades and explains why we’re all to blame for it: