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By Myra Karstadt
During World War II, the United States was the “Arsenal of Democracy,” and American manufacturing literally won the war. After World War II and through approximately 1970, Americans manufactured and exported more goods than any other country, and the manufacturing sector’s robust state provided workers with enviable incomes and job security. The United States is no longer the manufacturing powerhouse it was, and these days it sometimes seems the most notable product and export of the U.S.A. is dubious financial instruments.
Even though manufacturing and heavy industry generally may no longer be central to the country’s industrial base, the problem of worker exposure to hazardous chemicals remains. The decline of manufacturing, where workplaces might have had unions and been relatively large, might even make the issue of hazards of worker exposure to hazardous chemicals more important and more problematic. Workers in industries not thought of in the past as chemical-dependent may be more likely to be working in small facilities and less likely to have union representation and/or access to occupational health professionals, and they may well be unfamiliar with chemical hazards. In fact, workers in industries not previously seen as primarily concerned with chemicals could be likened to bystander workers, exposed to hazardous substances being used by others in their vicinity but who are themselves unprotected and untrained.
The issue of information needed by workers exposed to chemicals has always been the same: who needs to know what?
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reported by Mine Safety and Health News: Martin County: New Information Released, But Information on Mine Seals Still Redacted
A Labor Dept.’s Inspector General report on the whistle-blower complaints surrounding the 2000 Martin County Coal Co. impoundment failure in Kentucky, verifies a change in MSHA’s investigation after the administration of George W. Bush came into power. In addition, the IG report shows that it never questioned the lead investigator into the impoundment failure – Tony Oppegard – who headed the investigation team until the day G.W. Bush was inaugurated.
The IG investigation was launched after Mine Academy head Jack Spadaro claimed that Bush Administration officials were interfering in the investigation into one of the largest environmental disasters in the eastern U.S. Spadaro was “second in command” on the MSHA investigation team looking into the causes of the failure, and was head of the team when Oppegard was absent.
The IG report shows that after the top echelon of MSHA changed with administrations, the tone and scope of the investigation also changed.
The Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee voted out the nomination of David Michaels, PhD, MPH for the position of Assistant Secretary of Labor for Occupational Safety and Health. The voice vote crossed party lines, with Republican Senators Isakson, Enzi, Alexander, Gregg, Murkowski, as well as all the Democratic Senators, voting in favor of sending the nomination on to the full Senate. Senators Richard Burr (R-North Carolina) and Tom Coburn (R-Oklahoma) recorded their votes as no.
Congratulations, Professor David Michaels! Read the media release issued by the American Public Health Association, urging swift Senate confirmation of Dr. Michaels. Georges C. Benjamin, MD, FACP, FACEP (E), the executive director of APHA, notes:
“Dr. Michaels is eminently qualified to lead OSHA. He has proven his skill at protecting workers in a regulatory setting and has earned the respect of the scientific community for his commitment to science as the backbone of sound public health and environmental regulation.”
by Richard Denison, PhD, cross-posted from EDF’s ChemNano Blog
Over the last few months, I was heartened to hear a number of industry stakeholders in the debate over TSCA reform embrace the idea of designating in TSCA reform legislation a “jump-start” or “quick-start” list of chemicals of high concern or priority. The idea was to allow EPA to hit the ground running, by having an agreed-to list of chemicals on which it could immediately initiate action. Well it now appears many in industry actually have something far slower and far more cumbersome in mind.
The Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade and Consumer Protection of the U.S House of Representatives’ Energy and Commerce Committee held a hearing yesterday on the question of “prioritization”: How a new law could best spur prompt identification of and action on the chemicals of highest concern. Mr. Bill Greggs testified on behalf of three trade associations prominent in the debate over TSCA reform: The Consumer Specialty Products Association, the Soap and Detergent Association, and the Grocery Manufacturers of America.
In Mr. Greggs’ testimony and answers to questions from subcommittee members, what industry has in mind when it talks about a quick start became much clearer:
by Andrew Schneider, cross-posted from Cold Truth
At last, the world’s oldest public health organization has joined the funeral dirge-paced parade to ban asbestos in the U.S. The 50,000-member American Public Health Association adopted a resolution at its annual meeting this week calling on Congress to pass legislation banning the manufacture, sale, export, or import of asbestos-containing products including products in which asbestos is a contaminant. Asbestos, a known carcinogen, annually claims the lives of more than 10,000 Americans.
“With this new policy, APHA is joining the World Federation of Public Health Associations and other international organizations calling for a global ban on asbestos mining, and manufacturing, and the dangerous practice of exporting asbestos containing products,” said Dr. Celeste Monforton, chair of the organization’s Occupational Health and Safety section. “As the World Health Organization noted in 2006, the most efficient way to eliminate asbestos related diseases is to stop using all types of asbestos.”
Asbestos was banned in the U.S. briefly in 1989, after the Environmental Protection Agency conducted a ten-year study, spent millions in research and accumulated 100,000 pages of justification. The agency announced that it would phase out and ban virtually all products containing asbestos. But the fledgling ban lasted less than two years. The well-funded Canadian Asbestos industry challenged the ban. The Fifth U.S. Circuit Court acknowledged that “asbestos is a potential carcinogen at all levels of exposure,” but nevertheless threw out the life-saving legislation over technical issues.
By Dick Clapp
Researchers at Boston University School of Public Health (full disclosure: colleagues of mine) this week reported an association between perfluoroalkyl compounds — including PFOA, which was used to make non-stick products — and increased cholesterol levels. This study took advantage of data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, a large dataset representative of the U.S. population now routinely collected by the CDC National Center for Environmental Health. The researchers looked at the concentrations of several chemicals of emerging concern, and found that three perfluorinated compounds were positively associated with total and non-HDL cholesterol. Because the increase was in non-HDL cholesterol (the “bad” cholesterol), this suggests that increased blood concentrations of the three perfluorinated compounds may be associated with increased cardiovascular disease in exposed people. The authors are careful to point out the limitations of their cross-sectional analysis, but rightly urge further study in other populations.
This study adds to the literature pointing to a range of adverse effects from perfluorinated compounds, including adverse effects on serum lipid levels in workers and residents near the Dupont plant in Parkersburg, West Virginia. As noted in previous posts here and in an on-going series of outstanding articles by Ken Ward in the Charleston (WV) Gazette, the implications of exposure to this persistent toxicant are widening. The full range of human and ecological problems caused by perfluorinated compounds is yet to be described, but we already could list it among the “late lessons from early warnings” stories in the annals of public health.
Stay tuned as more information continues to accumulate, and as U.S. and international regulatory agencies move to control the damage.
UPDATE: Study author Jessica Nelson was interviewed for this Living on Earth segment.
Dick Clapp is Professor in the Department of Environmental Health at Boston University School of Public Health, and former co-Chair of Greater Boston Physicians for Social Responsibility. He served as an expert witness for plaintiffs in the class action lawsuit between DuPont and citizens of Parkersburg, WV.
Underground coal mine operators can use conveyor belts, which do not satisfy the requirements set forth for the approval of flame-resistant conveyor belts (30 C.F.R. Part 14) if the conveyor belts have been warehoused, but are not in active use before December 31, 2009, according to an MSHA guidance document. The guidance document, dated Oct. 7, 2009, defines the term, “placed in service.”
by Andrew Schneider, cross-posted from Cold Truth
California has a killer state rock.
No, really. Its official state rock is serpentine which usually contains asbestos, which has killed hundreds of thousands of people.
Late last night, by unanimous vote, the city council of Manhattan Beach passed a resolution asking the state to find a different, non-lethal hunk of rock to memorialize.
by Matt Shudtz, cross-posted from CPRBlog
Greenwire and the Los Angeles Times ran pieces last week shining a light into a dark corner where staff at the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs once again meddled in scientific regulatory programs where they do not belong, second-guessing EPA’s administration of the Endocrine Disruptor Screening Program (EDSP). The program, mandated by Congress under the Food Quality Protection Act, is designed to identify pesticides like DDT that cause profound changes in wildlife and, potentially, people, through the ubiquitous application of pesticides. Both articles highlighted the key problem, which is that the OMB-promoted changes to the EDSP would undercut EPA’s attempt to get a full suite of new test data on 67 chemicals’ potential endocrine-disrupting effects. But there’s an additional important issue: OMB’s meddling, under the auspices of its power to enforce the Paperwork Reduction Act, shifted a heavy burden from industry’s shoulders to EPA’s.
Put another way, Obama’s OIRA snuck through the back door changes that industry had failed to get through the front door of the normal administrative process during the Bush Administration, ultimately forcing changes that threaten to completely undermine the EDSP, which has been moving at a snail’s pace in the face of ferocious industry opposition for well over a decade. Once again, like the episode we reported yesterday (“Don’t OMB Economists Have Better Things to Do Than Channel Industry Opposition to EPA Science?“), this particular bit of mischief was a fait accompli before Cass Sunstein was confirmed as OIRA Administrator. And, once again, the episode shows how much work Sunstein will have to do to transform and redirect an institution that in far too many ways continues to behave as if George W. Bush and his anti-regulatory appointees were still running the government.
by Rena Steiznor, cross-posted from CPR Blog
Original title: “Sunstein Watch: Old Habits Die Hard on the Regulatory Killing Ground; Don’t OMB Economists Have Better Things to Do Than Channel Industry Opposition to EPA Science?”
Before Cass Sunstein had spent much more than a week as the official director of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA), he invited us over to the White House to talk about how he wanted to shape his small office of economists and statisticians into a strong force for progressive policy within the White House. Followers of the Center for Progressive Reform know that we put out a report in the run-up to his confirmation that was critical of his views on cost-benefit analysis. So I give him credit for opening the door to us, and so soon after his confirmation at that.
It was a good meeting, and we pledged to keep in touch as he undertakes what I hope will be a re-education that will convert his staff from the Bush mode – serving as a sort of waiting room for disgruntled industries – to what we hope will be the Obama mode – serving as a group of visionary economists that identifies the toughest problems holding back desperately needed protections for workers, the public, and the environment, and then moving to make sure the regulatory structure does something about them.
An obscure set of documents posted just last week on the EPA website illustrates the point, demonstrating that in the period before Sunstein’s confirmation OIRA staff were continuing business as usual, acting as if President George W. Bush were still president.
