In our new report “The Year in U.S. Occupational Health & Safety,” we devote one section to key activities by the Obama Administration and the U.S. Congress.
The public health community needs to break its silence about the CIA’s sham vaccination program that’s being used as a cover for spying operations in Pakistan.
Environmental Health
More jobs than coal, oil and gas: Investing in the environment promotes economic growth
A new study finds that spending $1 million on coastal habitat restoration creates far more jobs than investing the same money in fossil-fuel industries.
In honor of (US) Labor Day, Celeste and I have started what we intend to be a new Labor Day tradition: publication of a report that highlights some of the important research and activities in occupational health in the US over the past year.
Injury Control & Violence
A different kind of Texas-style justice: Two nights at Austin’s Workers Defense Project
It’s Tuesday evening and as usual, the small parking lot outside the Workers Defense Project on Austin’s eastside is packed. The dusty lot is strewn with cars and pick-up trucks parked wherever they can fit and get in off the road. I’ve arrived well before the night’s activities begin, so I easily secure a spot. But my gracious guide and translator, a college intern named Alan Garcia, warns me that I might get blocked in. It happens all the time, he says.
Public Health Practice
Worth reading: NIH superbug, Nebraska’s child welfare system, and Paul Ryan’s convention speech
A few recent pieces worth a look.
Food Safety & Nutrition
The Hands that Feed Us: Most food industry workers earn low or poverty-level wages
A Food Chain Worker Alliance survey of food industry workers — including agricultural and farmworkers, food processing and slaughterhouse employees, and those working in food distribution and retail — found that 86% earned low or poverty wages.
During the last seven Presidential election years, OSHA has an interesting record of issuing new rules on worker safety issues despite the heated national campaigns.
Education
‘An issue that affects all of us’: Young workers center takes on wage theft in the Rio Grande Valley
For six months, Jorge Rubio worked at a local chain of tortilla bakeries and taquerias in the cities of Brownsville and San Benito, both in the very southern tip of Texas. Rubio, 42, prepared the food, cleaned equipment, served customers. Eventually, he decided to quit after being overworked for months. On his last day of work, his employer refused to pay him the usual $50 for an 11-hour workday.
An NEJM piece offers some advice and cautions about health insurance exchanges — a key to the Affordable Care Act’s success — based on the experiences of the Netherlands and Switzerland.