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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.
by Ken Ward, Jr. cross-posted from Coal Tattoo
The last person the U.S. Senate confirmed to run the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration without a confirmation hearing was named Dave D. Lauriski. We know how that turned out … Lauriski proceeded to dismantle MSHA and a terrible series of disasters followed.
It doesn’t seem likely that Joe Main is going to tear down the improvements made to MSHA (some might say forced upon MSHA and the Bush administration by Congress) following Sago, Aracoma, Darby and Crandall Canyon. But it’s still a shame that members of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee didn’t take the time to question Main and get him on the record about his plans for the agency. The full Senate could vote on— and likely approve — Main’s nomination as early as tomorrow.
I’ve already put in a request for an interview with Joe as soon as he’s confirmed. The answer I got — that he’ll want some time to get settled in first — makes me wonder … shouldn’t the very first thing that Joe Main changes about MSHA be its troublesome public information and Freedom of Information Act policies?
How about a memo that summarily gets rid of Bush-era information policies that prohibited inspectors and district managers from talking on-the-record to the media? How about reversing the rules that said inspection reports and copies of citations — once freely available to the press via fax — would only be made public upon submission of a formal FOIA request and months of waiting? And what about really dumping the Bush policy that transcripts of accident investigation interviews won’t be released to the press, the public and the mining community?
by Tom O’Connor from Progressive Voices
All is well at the poultry plants run by the House of Raeford in the Carolinas, at least according to an investigation by the South Carolina Workers’ Compensation Commission. A year and a half ago, the Charlotte Observer published an exposé on the company, uncovering a series of abuses in its treatment of injured workers and failure to report job injuries. In a recent follow-up story, the Observer reported on the results of the Commission’s audit of the company, which cleared House of Raeford of nearly all the allegations contained in the Observer’s in-depth investigation.
“The audit team’s findings indicate that, with a few minor exceptions, the House of Raeford is in compliance with the Workers’ Compensation Act. The investigation failed to uncover substantial proof of incidents as reported by the newspaper,” a staff memo concluded.
by Ken Ward, Jr., cross-posted from Sustained Outrage: a Gazette Watchdog Blog
During a public hearing last night in Georgia, the federal Chemical Safety Board tried to answer critics who complained the board had backed off its strong recommendation that the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) write new rules to protect workers nationwide from the dangers of explosive dust. In approving a final report on the disastrous explosion that killed 14 workers at and Imperial Sugar refinery, board members unanimously added this language as a recommendation to OSHA:
Proceed expeditiously, consistent with the Chemical Safety Board’s November 2006 recommendation and OSHA’s announced intention to conduct rulemaking, to promulgate a comprehensive dust standard to reduce or eliminate hazards from fire and explosion combustible powders and dust.
But the move did not satisfy the CSB’s critics. Evan Yeats of the United Food and Commercial Workers union told the Savannah Morning News that the board’s action was just a “public relations maneuver”:
It still could take years for OSHA to enact regulations using the current process, Yeats said. “We really can’t wait that long,” he said.
by Ken Ward, Jr., cross-posted from Sustained Outrage: a Gazette Watchdog Blog
The U.S. Chemical Safety Board is scheduled to release the findings of its investigation into the terrible explosion that killed 14 workers at a Georgia sugar refinery in February 2008.
It’s another big test for the CSB, which has been under fire recently. Organized labor harshly criticized the board for backing off a strong recommendation on the need for OSHA and EPA to write new rules to prevent accidents involving highly reactive chemicals. The board refused to support its own staff’s call for a safety bulletin and recommendations urging more controls on how workers handle the purging of gas lines.
When the Imperial Sugar report comes out, labor groups and safety advocates want to see the CSB repeat — in very tough terms — its previous call for OSHA to implement a “comprehensive regulatory standard” aimed at preventing dust explosions across all industries nationwide.
