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. 

In 2007, after six years of effort, U.S. Sen. Patty Murray muscled a new asbestos ban into existence.  The original language of the precisely crafted legislation would have addressed almost all commercial sources of asbestos. However, between Murray signing off on a solid and important bill and the time it was passed unanimously by the Senate, the asbestos industry, primary the automotive and sand and gravel gangs, had Republicans gut it to almost total uselessness. 

Almost 50 industrialized nations have banned the lethal fibers. The U.S. and Canada are the most notable exceptions.  Canada still mines and exports asbestos and too many U.S. lawmakers buckle to the power of industry lobbyists.    Yet like Murray, many continue the fight. 

“APHA set a precedent with strong language aimed at preventing asbestos exposure to eliminate deadly diseases.  We can’t let history repeat itself – it is time to ban asbestos and fund educational and research programs,” says Linda Reinstein, Executive Director of the Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization (ADAO).  “APHA renews our optimism that a federal asbestos ban is eminent,” added the head of the asbestos victim’s group.

See ADAO/APHA OHS Section news release here.

The Occupational Health & Safety Section’s Annual Awards Luncheon is always one of the highlights of the APHA Annual Meeting, due its combination of inspiring awardees and creative musical skit.

This year’s award winners won well-deserved recognition for (among other achievements) advancing the rights of chemical workers; developing a health disparities institute; honing methods for worker training; and organizing workers exposed to harmful substances to demand justice and compensation.

Sylvia Kieding won the 2009 Alice Hamilton Award, which “recognizes the life-long contributions of individuals who have distinguished themselves through a career of hard work and dedication to improve the lives of workers.” Kieding began working at the Denver headquarters of the Oil, Chemical & Atomic Workers Union in 1973, and spent 25 years making the union’s Lifelines newsletter “one of the most distinguished and powerful educational newsletters in the US.” She currently coordinates a medical surveillance program for thousands of OCAW members in the atomic sector. Although Kieding was recovery from hip surgery and unable to attend the luncheon, cell phone technology enabled her to say a few words of acceptance and hear the thundering applause for her four decades of tireless work as a labor, environmental, and community activist.

Kerry Souza won the 2009 Lorin Kerr Award, which “recognizes a younger activist for their sustained and outstanding efforts and dedication to improve the lives of workers.” Her work includes an innovative program that enhances community health centers’ abilities to recognize and treat work-related injuries among low-income, minority, and immigrant workers, and the development of the Occupational Health Disparities Institute, which has become a significant part of the OHS Section activities at the APHA Annual Meeting. Souza’s tireless work for the section – which, as she noted in her acceptance speech, involves a lot of 7am conference calls – includes extensive program planning and facilitating the participation of young members.

Steve Schrag won the 2009 Tony Mazzocchi Award, which “gives recognition to grassroots H&S activitists in Local Unions or other local organizations fighting for the H&S rights of workers.” As “one of the country’s premier worker trainers,” Schrag uses the action-oriented Small Group Activity Method to “engage workers on both their own health and safety issues and larger policy and political goals.” Since 1985, he has conducted workshops, seminars, and conferences for over 11,000 workers on a range of issues, and his most recent development is a leadership training based on Tony Mazzocchi’s biography. A board member at both ConnectiCOSH and NYCOSH, “he is always at the center of political discussions and developing new training programs.”

Antonio de Marco Rasteiro won the 2009 International H&S Award, which “recognizes individuals with outstanding achievement in the field of occupational health and safety outside the United States.” Rasteiro worked for 21 years at the Shell Brasil S/A pesticide manufacturing plant in Paulinia, Brazil. After learning about the risks of pesticides and realizing that many of the illnesses suffered by plant workers were probably linked to their occupational chemical exposures, Rasteiro and other former workers created the Associação dos Trabalhadores Expostos a Substâncias Químicas (Association of Workers Exposed to Chemical Substances), or ATESQ, to demand compensation. Together with the Sindicato Químicos Unificados (United Chemical Workers) and under Rasteiro’s leadership, ATESQ has been fighting for more than five years and has raised the profile of their case and the broader issue of worker exposure internationally. Like many of his colleagues, Rasteiro suffers from hypertension, hearing loss, and prostate and lung cancers. In his acceptance speech, Rasteiro told the audience that more than 51 former plant workers have died at ages from 28 to 60, compared to an average regional life expectancy of 75; he himself does not expect to live much longer, but “I do not intend to give up the responsibility that was born inside me, guided by my conscience.” Rasteiro told the group that he expects this award from APHA to strengthen their struggle.

Congratulations to all of the 2009 award winners! You can read more about the honorees and the awards’ history in the award program, and learn more about past honorees here.

After the awards were given, it was time for the traditional skit. This year’s creative masterpiece featured unscrupulous corporate executives contracting the “greedy swine flu,” which consists of an unusual constellation of symptoms (including pustules). A healthy dose of Occupational Safety and Health spirit allows vaccine-production workers to create an altruism vaccine that alleviates symptoms not only of the virus but of the executives’ dismissive attitudes toward worker welfare. Songmaster Luis Vasquez captured the visionary spirit with new lyrics to John Lennon’s “Imagine” (which we hope to be able to post here shortly – stay tuned!). Finally, the event closed with the traditional sing-along of “This Land is Your Land.”

As always, the Occupational Health & Safety Section’s Annual Award Luncheon captured the spirit of the section and of the movement for health and safety: staunch dedication to the cause of worker’s health and safety, a visionary spirit, and a willingness to combine a serious purpose with a spirit of fun.

It’s a tradition for APHA’s Occupational Health & Safety section to invite top officials from OSHA, MSHA, and NIOSH to a “Talking Heads” session at each APHA annual meeting. The session “The Future of Occupational Safety and Health in the Obama Administration” featured Jordan Barab, Deputy Assistant Secretary and Acting Assistant Secretary of Labor for OSHA; John Howard, Director of NIOSH; and Gregory Wagner, Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary for Policy of MSHA. The room was packed with an audience eager to hear how this new leadership plans to address worker health and safety issues that haven’t been getting enough attention in recent years.

John Howard, who was also head of NIOSH for several years during the Bush administration, characterized the change in administrations by saying that “it’s gratifying to be in the position of having your science wanted.” He emphasized that green jobs are not enough, but that “green and safe is what we need.” He also reminded the audience that there are many hurdles that have been put in place over the previous decades by the legislative, executive, and judicial branches of the government, so progress will still take lots of time and effort.

Greg Wagner told the crowd that it’s time to put the “H” of “health” back in MSHA, and noted that part of the reason the regulatory process takes so long is that there are many opportunities for public involvement. He called for greater participation from miners and urged the audience members to get involved, too.

Jordan Barab rattled off a list of things OSHA has already done: fined BP a record $87 million, issued several egregious violations (five will be issued by the end of the month, compared to four during all of last year), and ended the quotas for alliances and voluntary protection programs, to allow the agency to focus on enforcement. He said OSHA will be hiring more staff to deal with inspections, standards, and whistleblowing; holding a conference on immigrant workers; and turning attention to the problems of violence, stress, and fatigue.

The audience had a lot of questions and comments about how the agencies should go about rulemaking, enforcement, and recruiting the next generation of occupational health and safety professionals:

Rulemaking, Enforcement, and Research to Practice
In response to a question about how to speed up rulemaking, Barab said that they’re looking at getting rules out of the Department of Labor faster and in discussions with the Office of Management and Budget about that agency’s role. Wagner noted that MSHA has been more successful in getting rules out because its stakeholder groups are more limited and well-defined, and stated that their agency is trying to speed up the process by reducing the number of “bites of the apple” that each agency subgroup gets.

On the enforcement side of things, Wagner explained that MSHA will work on using predictive modeling to better target enforcement, with the goal of predicting where the next disaster may occur and averting them. Barab gave the BP penalty as an example of how OSHA is getting out the message that it’s going to be hard on lawbreaking employers, and said the agency would avoid as much as possible the practice of downgrading willful citations (which we saw all too frequently over the past several years). He noted that the lack of a confirmed Solicitor of Labor is a problem.

Celeste (who was moderating the session) asked the audience what they wanted from NIOSH, and one response was “research to practice” – that is, making sure that research gets applied in the field rather than just sitting in someone’s filing cabinet. Howard responded that research-to-practice is embedded in both internal and external research, and that he hopes to fund RtP centers similar to NIH centers that work on translating research into clinical practice. Later in the discussion, he also told the audience, “I can’t ask for appropriations, but you can.”

Recruiting the Next Generation
One question regarding how to get more young people involved in occupational health and safety generated lots of comments from audience members as well as the panelists. NIOSH funds Education and Research Centers and the Occupational Health Internship Program, and Presidential Management Fellowships are available with the Department of Labor. Wagner pointed out that government jobs are attractive in a bad economy, and MSHA is hiring right now. Barab mentioned that funding extramural research is a great way to get young investigators involved in the field, and that he lists this as a priority to appropriators.

When Celeste (who was moderating the discussion) asked how many people in the room had gotten their start through an ERC, OHIP, or New Directions grant, several hands went up. The fact that several actual young people approached the microphone with questions or comments also seemed like a good sign; one of them suggested that the agencies improve their websites, because she’d found it difficult to find what she was looking for online.

Towards the end of the program, someone asked about the state of the bureaucracy at OSHA. Barab said he’d been favorably surprised, and “we’re trying to unleash the inner Labor Department.” Overall, the feeling in the room was one of excitement and optimism – and it was clear from the tone and content of the questions that the occupational health and safety community will be holding the new leadership to very high standards.

If you went to this session, what kind of feeling did you get from it? And, whether or not you were there, what questions or comments do you have for the leaders of these agencies?

As is always the case at APHA, there are far too many fascinating presentations for one person to see – so I hope those of you who are also here in Philly will add comments about some of the sessions you’re attending and what you’re learning. Yesterday, I attended a session on health and safety in healthcare, which brought up some populations and scenarios that are too easily overlooked when discussing healthcare workers’ health and safety:

Elayne Kornblatt Phillips highlighted the risk of bloodborne pathogen exposure for hospital auxiliary workers and hospital laundry workers. Although nurses account for the majority of needlestick injuries, auxiliary and laundry workers can also be injured by improper disposal of sharps or by sharps piercing the sides of disposal containers. Laundry workers can also be exposed to bodily fluids, and their risk could be reduced by washing laundry before sorting it (rather than doing the sorting first, which is standard in the US) and running laundry through a metal detector to catch metal items tangled in sheets and gowns.

Holly Carpenter of the American Nurses Association spoke about nurses who serve as first receivers for patients exposed to chemical hazards. Although chemicals dissipate between when the exposure occurs and when the patient arrives at the hospital, and nurses don’t tend to be as heavily exposed as first responders, it’s important for them to have procedures and equipment in place to deal with these situations. Hazard vulnerability analyses, emergency management plans, incident command systems, and PPE are all important for nurses dealing with patients who’ve had acute exposures to pesticides, meth labs, workplace spills, industrial cleaners, and vehicle accidents (particularly those involving overturned tractor trailers).

Jennifer McGowan from the University of Illinois-Chicago discussed an evaluation of health and safety curricula for homecare workers, who care for elderly and disabled patients in their homes. Her team was evaluating whether different agencies’ trainings adequately address hazard control through engineering, administrative, and personal interventions. One interesting point she made was that some training programs take a client-focused rather than worker-focused view – for example, explaining how to keep clients safe from infections without also teaching about how workers can protect themselves from infections (comprehensive training will, of course, include both).

If you’ve learned something interesting at the meeting, let us know in the comments – and, of course, you can read about many more sessions at the APHA Annual Meeting Blog.

Each year, the Public Relations Society of America gives a Silver Anvil Award, which “acknowledges the very highest level of achievement and is the established icon of the ‘best of the best’ public relations practices.” The latest Silver Anvil has just been given to the communications firm Edelman for its work for Imperial Sugar following the 2008 explosion at its Port Wentworth, Georgia facility, which killed 14 workers and severely injured another 32.

While we here at The Pump Handle have focused on the company practices that allowed for a dangerous accumulation of combustible dust, Edelman was considering another question: “Would Imperial be seen as the helpless victim of a disaster or as a company poised to rebuild?” Edelman was considered an award-winning success because its PR work helped achieve an outcome favorable to Imperial Sugar: the restarting of production at the Port Wentworth facility and stabilization of its stock price.

The writeup of Edelman’s achievements also mentions “turn-on-dime responsiveness,” but the Savannah Morning News’s Larry Peterson has a different perspective on the company’s responsiveness:

Edelman’s Atlanta-based Steve Behm has fielded questions about whether Imperial did all it could have to prevent the disaster.

Behm’s replies have varied widely.

They have included detailed answers, terse denials, refusals to comment and sometimes almost identical statements on different topics.

He also led a campaign to discredit Graham H. Graham, a former company executive who became a whistle-blower witness against Imperial.

Seems like some of us have different definitions of what constitutes success.

I feel like I’m pretty up on the push for green jobs (creating jobs in the building and installation of wind turbines, construction of energy-efficient buildings, etc.) but this morning at the APHA meeting, I learned something about the occupational health angle of this movement. At a session from the Blue-Green Alliance, Walter Jones of the Laborers’ Health and Safety Fund of North America and TJ Lentz of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health spoke about making green jobs safe jobs.

So far, it seems that the shift toward greener buildings hasn’t done much to make the construction or maintenance of these places safe for workers. (One positive point is that the use of safer paints and solvents can reduce workers’ as well as residents’ exposure to fumes.) Designers of buildings don’t generally pay much attention to the ways that their plans will affect the way workers interact with them, and design schools don’t tend to include occupational health and safety in their curricula. Jones noted that between 1990 and 2003, 42% of all US construction-related fatalities were linked to design.

Problems include a lack of anchor points for workers to tie off to when they’re working off the ground, and parapets that meet building code requirements (being at least 30 inches high) but not OSHA requirements (39 to 45 inches). When it comes to wind turbines, fall protection is also crucial, and the inside of the tower is a confined space – but designers rarely address anchor points or tower access and ventilation issues.

Occupational health and safety advocates are working to get safety issues on designers’ radar. The American Association of Safety Engineers has begun working on a standard to protect workers involved in windpower facilities, and NIOSH runs a Prevention Through Design program. As we all throw our support behind green jobs, we should make sure that “green” includes worker health and safety.

The US Department of Health and Human Services’ Healthy People program, which for the past several decades has provided “science-based, 10-year national objectives for promoting health and preventing disease,” has opened its 2020 iteration for public comment. Between October 30 and December 31, 2009, the public is welcome to provide feedback on the proposed objectives as individuals, as part of an organization, or anonymously. These objectives span a number of health topics, and many extend outside of the public health and health care sectors.

Comment on the draft objectives.

Attend a public meeting to comment in person.

At the opening general session of the American Public Health Association’s annual meeting, I learned a few things about Philadelphia, where this year’s meeting is happening. Philadelphia opened the nation’s first public hospital, nursing school, and medical school, and it boasts the highest childhood immunization rate in the nation and the greatest proportion of workers who walk to work. Also, given that water is the theme for this year’s meeting, it’s fitting to note that Philly was the home of the nation’s first municipal waterworks.

Speakers at the opening session set the tone for an ambitious and optimistic meeting (with some of that optimism probably due to the House’s passage of healthcare legislation last night):

Dr. Mirta Roses Periago, director of the Pan-American Health Organization, reminded us why accesss to clean water, sanitation, and hygiene is so crucial: each year, 1.4 million children die from preventable cases of diarrhea. No public health intervention has greater impact, she told us, than improving water, sanitation, and hygiene. Without water-related improvements, the world jeopardizes its achievement of the Millennium Development Goals; conversely, investments in these improvements yield enormous returns.

Recently confirmed US Surgeon General Regina Benjamin, MD spoke about some of the experiences that  have informed her practice as a doctor and will inform her work as the nation’s doctor. One of her patients, a middle-aged African-American woman who had insurance through her job as a school janitor, delayed filling a much-needed prescription for pain medication because she couldn’t afford her prescription co-pay until payday. Dr. Benjamin arranged to get the prescription filled, and was surprised to find her patient upset to receive the medication. She realized that she had taken her patient’s dignity, and that “you can have the same race as a person but still be culturally incompetent.” (Dr. Benjamin addressed the situation by telling her patient that the prescription money came from a fund set up for just such situations, and that she could make a donation to it once she received her paycheck.) In addition to serving as a lesson on the importance of cultural understanding, Dr. Benjamin noted that this story highlights the widespread problem of underinsurance.

EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson also touched on the role of race and culture as she emphasized the Obama Administration’s commitment to broadening the conversation on the environment and reaching out to racial minorities and low-income communities that have been underrepresented in the environmental movement. After touching on some of the environmental issues – particularly air and water pollution – that directly affect human health, she focused on the importance of reforming chemical management, particularly the Toxic Substances Control Act. Jackson discussed EPA’s six principles for reforming chemical management legislation, which include placing the responsibility for demonstrating safety on industry (rather than EPA) and giving the agency clear authority for conducting safety reviews. Jackson also reminded the audience that “environmental protection is public health protection.”

Like Regina Benjamin, filmmaker Celine Cousteau learned important lessons in culture, communication, and helping people through her experiences with indigenous communities in the Amazon. After becoming engaged in the health issues in that area, Cousteau approached a tribal leader about getting access to his village to make a movie. When he asked her what she would do for them in exchange for access and guidance, she “naively said, ‘I’m making this big international film.” But the tribal leader told her that researchers studying medicinal plants and anthropology had come in the past to get information from the tribe, but had failed to make good on their promises to help. This, Cousteau said, taught her the best lesson of her adult life: “Great intentions are not enough.”

Cousteau ended up learning about a nonprofit group called Amazon Promise, which sends medical teams to remote Amazon villages to provide healthcare, train local people to provide healthcare services, and educate community members about prevention. In exchange for getting brought along on their trips, Cousteau serves as aone-woman film production crew and donates the resulting films to the group to use in fundraising. She also drew an important lesson from the organization’s director, Patty Webster, when she asked Webster how she manages to avoid getting discouraged given the enormous gap between what communities need and what Amazon Promise can provide. Webster’s response was, “At least I’m doing something” — and maybe it only makes a difference for one person, or 30, or 300, but that’s something.

Here at APHA, everyone is doing something to make the world a healthier place. If you’re here in Philly, let us know in the comments about what you’ve seen or heard that’s interested you. Also check out the APHA Annual Meeting Blog for posts about several of the different sessions going on.

Earlier today, the Senate Democratic Policy Committee held a hearing on the use of burn pits for trash at military bases in Iraq and Afghanistan – a practice that may be exposing thousands of soldiers and civilians to carcinogens, respiratory irritants, and neurotoxins. A particularly large burn pit at the Balad Air Base in Iraq has been getting a lot of attention, but the use of burn pits seems to be widespread at these military bases.

As DPC Chair Senator Byron Dorgan pointed out in his opening remarks, burn pits are the kind of thing you’d expect to see at a makeshift base, not at the major military installations that we’ve built in Iraq and Afghanistan over the last six or seven years. (Senator Dorgan noted that the Balad Air Base houses 20,000 troops and has “good paved roads, two large swimming pools with diving wells, two PX’s that look like huge  American-style supermarkets, five mess halls, and a full-service movie theater complete with a Dolby surround sound system.”) Witness Anthony Szema, MD, Chief of the Allergy Section at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Northport, NY, explained to the committee that bases should replace burn pits with incinerators as quickly as possible because incinerators burn trash at higher temperatures and thus create far less harmful smoke.

Lt. Col. Darrin L. Curtis, Ph.D., P.E. (Ret.), a former bioenvironmental engineer with the US Air Force, testified that while he was stationed at the Balad Air Base, he worked with members of the Army’s Center for Health Promotion and Preventive Medicine (CHPPM) on conducting air sampling. He expressed concerns that the sampling was not accurately capturing the burn pit’s smoke plume, which shifted frequently with the winds, but CHPPM used the results to publish a risk assessment stating that “adverse health risks are unlikely.” The Department of Defense has relied on this report to conclude that “long-term health effects are not expected to occur from breathing the smoke” at Balad Air base. Lt. Col. Curtis and the other witnesses had a very different assessment of the situation, though.

More than a year prior to the publication of the CHPPM study, Lt. Col. Curtis wrote a report warning that the Balad burn pit posed an acute health hazard, with the possibility of long-term health hazards, for exposed individuals. “The smoke hazards [at Balad] are associated with burning plastics, Styrofoam, paper, wood, rubber, POL products, non-medical waste, some metals, some chemicals (paints, solvents, etc.), and incomplete combustion by-products,” he explained. He hoped that by notifying Air Force and Army officials about the problem, he could help hasten the construction of incinerators – and in the meantime, all he could do for the servicemembers complaining of headaches, nausea, and respiratory problems was to tell them that their exposure would be included in their medical records.

Incinerator construction doesn’t seem to be a priority, though. Rick Lamberth, a former KBR employee and Army reservist who has served at various sites in Iraq and Afghanistan in both military and civilian capacities, noted that KBR is responsible for waste management under its Logistics Civilian Augmentation Program (LOGCAP) contract, but he has watched KBR personnel flout the rules on waste disposal:

While working for KBR, I witnessed KBR employees dump nuclear, biological, chemical decontamination materials and bio-medical waste, plastics, oil and tires into burn pits in direct violation of military regulations, federal guidelines, and the LOGCAP contract Statement of Work. …

Under the LOGCAP contract, waste disposal by private contractors must comply with Army regulations, federal EPA, and the Defense Logistics Agency’s regulations for waste and hazmat removal and disposal. The contract states that work must comply with federal, state, and local requirements concerning hazard identification and control activities. These activities include surveys, hazard assessments, training, medical monitoring, worker protection, occupant notification, and proper solid waste disposal. Army regulations require that waste management at Army installations outside the continental United States must comply with the National Environmental Policy Act. These regulations require that facilities be designed, operated, and maintained so as to protect the health and safety of service members, family members, civilian work force, and contractors. Solid waste management at these facilities must be in accordance with the Solid Waste Disposal Act (SWDA) as well as all applicable regulations and requirements of the EPA.

The LOGCAP contract Statement of Work outlined more specifically how waste was to be handled at military installations in Iraq and Afghanistan. The LOGCAP Statement of Work explicitly conforms to Army Technical Bulletin 593 (Guidelines for Field Waste Management), which allows for the use of burn pits “only in emergency situations until approved incinerators can be obtained.” Additionally, the Statement of Work further provides that any surface burning or “burn pits” must minimize the environmental effects on the base camp. It also requires that the “contractor shall minimize any type of smoke exposures to the camp population.” Certain hazardous waste materials are specifically prohibited from being disposed of in burn pits, including PCBs and nuclear, medical and biological waste. Guidelines also prohibit disposal of petroleum, oils, solvents and lubricants in burn pits.

Senator Dorgan emphasized – and other Senators echoed – that Congress has so far failed in its responsibility to oversee work by KBR and other military contractors. Such a lack of oversight not only costs taxpayers money; more importantly, it also has implications for the health of thousands of servicemembers and civilians stationed at military bases. The DPC lacks the authority to conduct such oversight, so Senator Dorgan recommends the creation of a body similar to the Truman Commission. (See this article by DC Bureau’s Adam Lichtenheld for more on what Congress ought to be doing.)

For soldiers and civilians sickened after exposures to toxic substances on military bases, getting compensation is an uphill struggle. Rick Lamberth has “suffered from shortness of breath, spit up bloody mucus, skin rashes, and … been diagnosed with a non-organic sleeping order” since returning from Iraq and has sought treatment from the VA – but the VA has claimed that his conditions existed prior to service, even though a pre-deployment physical found no health problems. L. Russell Keith, a former KBR medic who served at Balad for more than a year, now exhibits the signs and symptoms of Parkinson’s, and his doctor’s opinion is that the atypical nature of his neurological problems (namely, occurring on only one side of his body and at a younger age than usual) suggests that they are due to exposure to toxins. Mr. Keith has filed for compensation under the Defense Base Act, but KBR has fought it and the appeals process is likely to continue for many more months. In the meantime, he cannot work and is without health insurance. He’s quickly burning through his savings to pay for medical treatment.

In short: KBR is failing to comply with the terms of its contract and Congress is failing to exercise appropriate oversight. Those serving at Balad and other bases with similar burn pits are exposed to a host of toxic substances, and when they develop health problems that are likely related to their service they struggle to get treatment and compensation. It’s wrong on many levels, but there’s very little happening to fix it.

Beth Griffin was a Research Assistant at Yerkes Regional Primate Research Center at Emory University when she was splashed in the eye with fluids from a rhesus macaque.  She acquired a Cercopithecine herpesvirus 1 (B virus) infection and died 42 days after exposure.  She was 22 years old.

Every day, high school and university students walk into science laboratories.  They may be students fulfilling a curriculum requirement, interns, or budding researchers.  Will they have received safety training unique to the potential biological, chemical, and physical hazards they may encounter in their lab environments?  Will they have received training that they understand given their ages and limited experience working in a lab?

To ensure young scientists learn safe lab practices, the National Institutes of Health has published a truly one-of-its-kind laboratory safety training developed for students.  This training, called STAR-LITE (Safe Techniques Advance Research – Laboratory Interactive Training Environment), is web-based and available for free.

STAR-LITE is built on a video game platform.  It allows users to determine their own fate as they step through a series of lab experiments.  The training covers biological, chemical, and physical hazards, safe work methods, engineering controls, and personal protective equipment.  It includes lesson plans for teachers to download for classroom use.

Thank you NIH.  You’ve demonstrated an innovative (and fun) way to teach an otherwise ignored subject.

STAR-LITE is dedicated to Beth Griffin and all young scientists and their families who have needlessly suffered exposure to preventable lab-based accidents.