Matthew Indeglia, 20, was in the midst of his second day on the job on November 6 at Dominion’s Salem Harbor Power Station (in Salem Harbor, Mass.) when a 10-story boiler exploded, sending steaming-hot water vapor into his work area. Also in the work zone were 19-year company veterans Phillip Robinson, 56, and Mark Mansfield, 41, who […]
A few weeks ago, we wrote about an exciting new book, The Man Who Hated Work and Loved Labor: The Life and Times of Tony Mazzocchi by Les Leopold (Chelsea Green 2007). The following is an excerpt from the book, reprinted here with permission of the publisher. For more information, go to www.chelseagreen.com, where you […]
Exactly one year ago today, we published our first post here on The Pump Handle. Itâs been an eventful year, to say the least. By far, our most popular post was David Michaelsâs âPopcorn Lung Coming to Your Kitchen? The FDA Doesnât Want to Know,â which publicized the first reported case of bronchiolitis obliterans in […]
Bloggers are bringing us lots of drug news this week: Abel Pharmboy at Terra Sigillata explains why a decision by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is devastating news for lymphoma patients â and possibly for all cancer patients (here, too). Ed Silverman at Pharmalot considers the drop in new drug approvals by the […]
Molly Selvin of the Los Angeles Times reports that California’s Division of Occupational Safety and Health (Cal/OSHA) has issued a citation to a Hilton hotel at LAX airport for violations of the State’s rules to protect workers from repetitive motion injuries. She quotes Len Welsh head of Cal/OSHA: “‘The LAX Hilton ‘did not follow policies that […]
Somehow, I missed Devra Davisâ powerful essay Off Target in the War on Cancer which appeared in the Washington Post last week. Davis, a well known environmental epidemiologist, is the author of the just published The Secret History of the War on Cancer. In the Post essay, she makes a very convincing case that there […]
In my post yesterday “OSHA issues PPE rule: what took’em so long?” I forgot to mention that OSHA is giving employers six months to comply with it. Recall that this egregiously tardy rule simply clarifies when employers are supposed to pay for personal protective equipment (PPE). As Asst. Secretary Edwin Foulke repeated in his announcement yesterday, the rule: […]
OSHA’s long-awaited rule on “who pays for personal protective equipment” has finally seen the light of day.  Assistant Secretary of Labor Edwin Foulke made the announcement today in a telephone press conference; workers and employers should be able to read the rule in the Federal Register on November 15. The Agency proposed this rule more than 8 years […]
Over at The Intersection, Chris Mooney has a teaser about his terrific article “An Inconvenient Assessment,” chronicling the effort by the Bush administration, in cahoots with ExxonMobil-funded climate change deniers, to undercut a vitally important climate change report. The longer article appears in this monthâs issue of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. While the […]
Los Angeles jurors awarded $3.2 million in damages to six Nicaraguan workers who say they were left sterile after being exposed to the pesticide DBCP on Dole Foodsâ banana plantations. DBCP has been banned in most of the world; California banned it in 1977, after DBCP was found to cause sterility in men working at […]