Mine explosions in China and Columbia in recent weeks have killed a total of 120 mineworkers. An explosion in a coal mine in Antioquia, Colombia, killed 73 mineworkers; a total of 160 were in the mine at the time of the blast, and 90 escaped. Gas accumulations prevented rescue and recovery teams from entering the […]
New Solutions: The Drawing Board is a monthly feature produced by the journal New Solutions. Read more about it here. By Richard Clapp The President’s Cancer Panel report released on May 6 had some strong findings and recommendations on ways to reduce the cancer burden caused by workplace exposures. This is welcome news to U.S. […]
In 1999, two machinists who worked next to each other at a Pratt & Whitney jet engine plant in North Haven, Connecticut were diagnosed with glioblastoma, a rare and fatal brain cancer. Their wives started compliling information about other employees at the same company who’d received similar diagnoses, and focused attention on the workers’ illneses […]
It’s been good to see OSHA adding more Gulf sampling data to its website, but the presentation of the information there isn’t quite as detailed as we were expecting to see. We asked an industrial hygienist colleague for a reaction to the web pages, and got an in-depth response. Here are one industrial hygienist’s recommendations […]
Melanie Trottman reported in the Wall Street Journal last week that US Representatives James Oberstar and Jerrold Nadler have demanded that Gulf response and recovery workers be provided with respirators (among other protective equipment), but OSHA doesn’t think respirators should be required: David Michaels, assistant secretary for the Department of Labor’s OSHA, said in an […]
By Elizabeth Grossman Expressions of concern for oil spill response workers’ health and safety grew this past week as reports arrived by way of the Louisiana Environmental Action Network that BP was denying workers’ requests for respirators. On June 4th, the Wall Street Journal reported that Representatives Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) and James Oberstar (D-Minn) had […]
The New York Times’ Clifford J. Levy reports on violence against at journalists investigating corruption in the Moscow suburbs: Mikhail Beketov had been warned, but would not stop writing. About dubious land deals. Crooked loans. Under-the-table hush money. All evidence, he argued in his newspaper, of rampant corruption in this Moscow suburb. “Last spring, I […]
By Elizabeth Grossman If the recommendations of the just published President’s Cancer Panel report, Reducing Environmental Cancer Risk: What We Can Do Now, become part of a comprehensive national policy agenda, the United States will have a remarkable new cancer prevention strategy – one that includes aggressive efforts to reduce and eliminate chemical exposures that […]
By Elizabeth Grossman It’s now a month since the Deepwater Horizon well exploded, and the oil continues to flow. By official count, the response now involves 27,400 civilian and military personnel, 11,000 volunteers, more than 1040 boats, dozens of aircraft, and multiple offshore drilling units. As more and more people become involved, health and safety […]