OSHA | The Pump Handle

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 […]

OSHA No surprise, Coalition for Workplace Safety rejects tough sanctions for employers who violate safety laws

July 13, 2010 Celeste Monforton, DrPH, MPH 2Comment

The web address is “working for safety.com” but the Coalition for Workplace Safety is just another well-funded attempt by the National Association of Manufacturers, the US Chamber of Commerce, and more than 20 other industry groups to oppose fundamental improvements to the 40 year old OSHA law. Despite their catchy web address, I was hard […]

Environmental Health Recommendations for OSHA’s Gulf Online Sampling Data

June 14, 2010 Liz Borkowski, MPH 1Comment

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 […]

Environmental Health Are Respirators Necessary in the Gulf?

June 8, 2010 Liz Borkowski, MPH 14Comment

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 […]

Environmental Health Who’s Ensuring Cleanup Workers are Adequately Trained and Protected?

May 20, 2010 The Pump Handle 7Comment

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 […]

Environmental Health Who Put BP in Charge?

May 19, 2010 Liz Borkowski, MPH 8Comment

It’s only right that BP bear the cleanup costs in the Gulf – but their cleanup responsibilities shouldn’t interfere with federal agencies doing their jobs. Two recent news accounts paint a disturbing picture of federal employees taking orders from the multinational corporation that’s turned an already hard-hit part of our coastline into a disaster zone.

Injury Control & Violence OSHA defines a “severe violator,” but would your bad actor make the cut??

May 17, 2010 Celeste Monforton, DrPH, MPH 6Comment

Late last month, OSHA chief David Michaels announced the Severe Violator Enforcement Program, (SVEP) a new iniative targeted at “recalcitrant employers who endanger workers by demonstrating indifference to their responsibilities under the law.” OSHA says once these bad actor employers are identified, it will conduct inspections at other worksites controlled by the same employer where […]