Child Labor “Putting their workers at risk while profiting from taxpayer dollars” – Senate committee report spotlights federal contractors’ labor violations
December 16, 2013 Elizabeth Grossman 3Comment

“Too often nothing happens,” said John Podesta, Center for American Progress chair and founder, introducing the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pension Majority Committee report released on December 11th that details federal contractors’ repeat and serious occupational safety and wage violations. “Too often the government renews agreements with companies that have a long track record […]

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Environmental Health Will Gulf Coast ecosystem restoration include restoring the health of its people?
March 8, 2011 Elizabeth Grossman 2Comment

By Elizabeth Grossman It’s now almost eleven months since the BP/Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded, killing 11 workers, and almost eight months since the damaged well was capped. While the emergency phase of this disaster is over, the assessment of and response to its long-term impacts are just now getting underway. On February 28th, the […]

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Environmental Health National Contingency Plan Left Gulf Inadequately Prepared for Health Effects of Deepwater Horizon Disaster
February 16, 2011 The Pump Handle

By Elizabeth Grossman Since release of its Final Report to the President on January 11th, the National Oil Spill Commission has released five additional papers (called “working papers”) reviewing aspects of the BP/Deepwater Horizon oil disaster – three on February 3rd and two on February 8th. On February 11th, National Oil Spill Commissioners Don Boesch […]

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Environmental Health “Not Fully Competent” or “Not Fully Candid”: Administration Disappoints on Oil Spill Science
October 11, 2010 Liz Borkowski, MPH 6Comment

Several news outlets have reported that the commission appointed by President Obama to study the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill has issued preliminary reports that are sharply critical of the Obama administration’s handling of the disaster. I downloaded the commission’s draft working paper “The Amount and Fate of the Oil” to see how they described […]

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Environmental Health What Next: Assessing Deepwater Horizon damages and what we have yet to learn about the oil spill’s impacts
August 23, 2010 Elizabeth Grossman 5Comment

By Elizabeth Grossman On August 17th the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) held the first public discussion of plans for its Gulf Worker Study – also called the Gulf Long Term Follow-up Study – designed to assess short and long-term health effects associated with BP/Deepwater Horizon oil disaster clean-up work. “Since the spill,” […]

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Environmental Health Occupational Health News Roundup
August 18, 2010 Liz Borkowski, MPH

Before BP’s name was linked in everyone’s mind to the Gulf oil disaster, the company was infamous for its unsafe Texas City refinery, where a March 2005 explosion killed 15 workers and injured 170. In September 2005, OSHA cited BP for $21 million, and BP paid the fine and entered into an agreement with OSHA […]

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Environmental Health Will BP Pay for the Spill’s Toll on Mental Health?
August 3, 2010 Liz Borkowski, MPH 3Comment

BP’s well in the Gulf of Mexico has been capped and may soon be “killed” for good, but fixing the widespread damage from the disaster will take years. The National Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health has has released a report (supported by the Children’s Health Fund) based on […]

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Environmental Health “I want those workers to be as safe as those shrimp” – What we still don’t know about Deepwater Horizon response health impacts
July 20, 2010 The Pump Handle 4Comment

by Elizabeth Grossman “I want this seafood to be safe. But I want those workers to be as safe as those shrimp and I’m not just going for funny one-liner,” said Senator Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) at the conclusion of the July 15th Senate Appropriations Committee’s Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies subcommittee hearing on the […]

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Environmental Health Occupational Health News Roundup
July 15, 2010 Liz Borkowski, MPH 4Comment

Kyle Hopkins of McClatchy follows up on the question of how we learned from the Exxon Valdez disaster about long-term health effects experienced by cleanup workers. In short, we have no peer-reviewed studies on this important topic, even though occupational health experts called for long-term monitoring of workers. Hopkins writes: Exxon has consistently maintained that […]

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