The Charlotte Observerâs excellent series on poultry workers began by detailing the injuries workers suffer and the way company officials dismiss their complaints (highlighted in a previous roundup), and continued with a look at the inadequate regulations, inspections, and fines for poultry-processing plants. For the company House of Raeford Farms, which it cited for dozens […]
Diacetyl â the butter-flavoring chemical linked to severe lung disease in food and flavoring workers â hasnât been in the news much recently. It got a lot of attention in September, when we drew attention to the case of a Colorado man who appeared to have developed bronciolitis obliterans from eating microwave popcorn twice a […]
Todayâs front page story in USA Today is about a shortage of surgeons at U.S. hospitals, with a focus on rural areas; the shortage threatens the health of 54 million rural Americans, reports Robert Davis. Part of the problem is that medical schools held enrollment steady for too long, rather than increasing it to account for the […]
Most of us are lucky enough not to have to worry about our sewage. We flush the toilet, it goes away somewhere, and we don’t have to worry about cholera or other diseases that spread when waste contaminates the water supply. While most of sewage systems do a great job of making the water look […]
In the LA Times, Victoria Kim follows up on the issue of USDA inspections related to the record-setting beef recall. The terrible practices caught on tape at the Hallmark slaughterhouse evidently occurred under the nose of USDA inspectors, and Kimâs article explains how this can happen:
That’s the headline from an editorial in today’s Savannah Morning News, laying responsibility for the broken workplace safety regulatory system on the Secretary of Labor’s desk. The words of editorial page editor, Tom Barton, sound like those I’ve heard before when a workplace disaster strikes a town. Journalists, community leaders, and family member victims are […]
Thereâs been a lot of blogging about vaccines lately: Mark Meier at Science Progress explains how a cocaine-addiction vaccine was developed, and what questions and hurdles it still faces. Jacob Goldstein at WSJâs Health Blog explains what this yearâs mismatched flu vaccine means for next yearâs production (also see Effect Measure on this yearâs flu […]
In an 8-1 decision in Riegel v. Medtronic, the Supreme Court has ruled that medical-device manufacturers whose products secured pre-market FDA approval are immune from liability for personal injuries. So, if youâre injured by a medical device (like a drug-coated stent or prosthetic hip) thatâs received this approval, you wonât be able to sue the […]
There are a number of memorable quotes in the Center for Study of Responsive Law’s newly released report “Undermining Safety: A Report on Coal Mine Safety.”  In one section, report author Christopher W. Shaw discusses the mining industry’s lobbying for “targeted inspections” (a la the OSHA model) instead of the current requirement for mandatory quarterly inspections. The AFL-CIO’s secretary-treasurer Richard […]
As the recent problems with tainted food, drugs, toys, and other consumer products have made clear, our regulatory system has a lot of holes in it. Part of the problem is the current reluctance of agency appointees to do anything that might burden the industries in question, but thatâs not the whole story. Itâs also […]