Given the lack of encouraging global warming developments coming out of the G8 summit, itâs nice to have good news on other topics: After a two-year boycott by doctors, authors, and healthcare and peace advocates, Lancet publisher Reed Elsevier has agreed to end its involvement in weapon sales â Grrl Scientist at Living the Scientific […]
Richard Stickler, the Asst. Secretary for MSHA, announced a new educational campaign to increase awareness about black lung disease. This latest initiative comes in response to surveillance data showing newly diagnosed cases of progressive massive fibrosis (PMF) among miners working in Lee County and Wise County, Virginia.  Stickler’s “Control the Dust/Prevent Black Lung” campaign, which includes a personal letter sent to each and every underground coal mine […]
Over the past few years, millions of formlerly secret internal documents from the tobacco industry have been made public and helped public health advocates learn how Big Tobacco deceived lawmakers and the public about smoking’s health risks. Wading through all these documents is time-consuming, so the Center for Media and Democracy has launched a TobaccoWiki that will allow […]
Breaking news: Another contract worker has been killed on the job at BPâs Texas City refinery â the site of the deadly 2005 explosion that took 15 workersâ lives. The worker, whose name has not been released, was electrocuted while working on an idle unit that was being reconditioned. Stress on the job has been […]
By Dick Clapp Rachel Carson has been in the news quite a lot recently, first as the object of a diatribe by a U.S. Senator, and also in a series of news stories commemorating what would have been her 100th birthday last week. Tim Lambert at Deltoid has addressed the false allegations about Carson and […]
By Liz Borkowski In a commentary in the latest issue of JAMA, Sheldon Krimsky (a member of the planning committee for the Project on Scientific Knowledge and Public Policy, and a contributor to this blog) and Tania Simoncelli examine the EPAâs guidelines for testing pesticides on humans and find that the agency is making âa […]
OSHA issued an advanced notice of proposed rulemaking (ANPRM) asking for public input for a possible new safety regulation on mechanical power presses. The existing OSHA regulation is based on a 1971 standard issued by the American National Standards Institute. The ANPRM lists 37 specific questions, and the responses provided by commenters will help the agency decide whether […]
By David Michaels The first law of ecology is that everything is related to everything else. -Barry Commoner Tomorrow in New York City Barry Commonerâs friends are gathering to celebrate his 90th birthday. In 2007, Barryâs statement on ecology seems obvious if not trite, but that was not the case in 1966, when his landmark […]
By Peter Dooley The stories of injury and illness among workers at the Toyota Georgetown plant (reported in the Washington Post story this past week) remind us all about the plight of workers without representation in their workplace. Facing termination after an injury, being transferred to a less desirable job or being discriminated against for standing up for basic rights […]
The editors at the Charleston Gazette and the Louisville Courier-Journal deserve a pat on the back for allowing their reporters to follow-up on worker safety and health stories.  Ken Ward at the Charleston Gazette is still covering important matters related to MSHA and the Sago mine, more than 15 months after the terrible January 2, 2006 disaster.  In “MSHA […]