Early Sunday morning (May 10), I read a news brief from WSAZ reporting that seven workers had been rescued from a flooded underground coal mine in Gilbert, WV, after being trapped for 32+ hours. As I combed the web for further details, I was struck by the news accounts and audio recordings noting that the trapped miners and their families had spoken […]
Compact fluorescent lightbulbs save energy, but the mercury in them has to be handled with lots of caution â and thatâs not always the case in the Chinese factories that manufacture a large share of the bulbs. Michael Sheridan Reports for the Sunday Times (UK):Â In southern China, compact fluorescent lightbulbs destined for western consumers […]
One trait of a good reporter is providing facts—facts that may make us uncomfortable, but ultimately force us to ask “is this really true?”  That’s what happened to me on Friday when I read the Charleston Gazette’s Ken Ward’s piece Solis plays fast and loose on MSHA budget, in which he accused the new Labor Secretary of spinning the data on mine safety enforcement […]
Regulation
To boldly go where FDA has not gone before: vigorous regulation needed for food additives, cosmetics, and dietary supplements
By Myra Karstadt Peanuts, pistachios, peppers (maybe tomatoes too), spinach, spicesâ¦â¦â¦.The list of produce recalled due to bacterial contamination gets longer, and baleful glances are cast at the Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition (CFSAN- say siff-san), the part of FDA charged with regulating the safety of those agricultural products. With any luck, sometime […]
by revere, cross-posted from Effect Measure The spate of swine flu articles in The New England Journal of Medicine last week included an important “Perspective, The Signature Features of Influenza Pandemics â Implications for Policy,” by Miller, Viboud, Baliska and Simonsen. These authors are familiar to flu watchers as experienced flu epidemiologists and analysts of […]
In a Montana courtroom earlier today, a jury returned a ânot guiltyâ verdict in the government’s case against W.R. Grace and three of its executives. It’s widely known that W.R. Grace’s actions contaminated the entire town of Libby, Montana with asbestos, and that hundreds of Libby residents have died or become seriously ill from asbestos-related […]
By Kas What happens when Founding Fathers question the existence of the system they helped to create? No, not those Founding Fathers. Here weâre referring to William D. Ruckelshaus and J. Clarence âTerryâ Davies, two of our environmental policy champions and USEPA bricklayers. In the April 2009 publication Oversight of Next Generation Nanotechnology from the […]
We were delighted in March when President Obama issued a memorandum on scientific integrity, stating, âScience and the scientific process must inform and guide decisions of my Administration on a wide range of issues.â The memorandum gave the director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy 120 days to âdevelop recommendations for […]
During today’s confirmation hearing for M. Patricia Smith as Solicitor of Labor, Senator Patty Murray (D-WA) referred back to last week’s Senate hearing on “Meaningful Roles for Victims and Their Families.” The dialogue went as follows: 00:72:30 Senator Murray: “This committee has had a number of hearings about workplace accidents and the aftermath. One of the things that […]
by revere, cross-posted from Effect Measure Breathing easier, may be an apt phrase for an almost audible collective sigh of relief. So far, the incipient swine flu pandemic is not extremely nasty. Is this perhaps premature? The world’s premier scientific journal, Nature, and many flu scientists, suggest it is: