In a two-page notice in today’s Federal Register, the Department of Labor’s acting assistant secretary for policy has officially withdrawn the so-called “secret rule” on occupational health risk assessment. It was exactly this time last summer that the G.W. Bush Administration’s Labor Department proposed new requirements for OSHA’s and MSHA’s preparation of occupational health risk assessments.  The […]
High Country News investigated worker deaths in dairy operations in Western states, and found that at least 18 people died between 2003 and 2009. (See their list of injuries and deaths for details.) Rebecca Claren explains: They were killed in tractor accidents, suffocated by falling hay bales, crushed by charging cows and bulls and asphyxiated […]
by Richard Denison, PhD cross-posted from blogs.edf In June, EPA published a Federal Register notice that included Significant New Use Rules (SNURs) for two carbon nanotubes (as well as 21 other chemicals). That notice certainly got the attention of lawyers in town (see here, here and here). The nanotube SNURs would require anyone planning to […]
Three physicians and researchers from the Capital University of Medical Sciences (Beijing, China) have published a case report in the European Respiratory Journal describing severe lung disease in seven female workers employed at a shop where they applied polyacrylic coatings to polystyrene boards. The lung disease is just one part of the story—two of the women died (ages […]
An Institute of Medicine task force responsible for recommending protections for healthcare workers from the swine flu/H1N1 virus held a meeting last week, and CIDRAP reporters were there. Robert Roos reports that the first day focused on the efficacy of surgical masks and N95 respirators in shielding healthcare workers from respiratory illness: The IOM panel […]
Our colleague Mark Catlin (SEIU and APHA OHS Section) has done it again, finding another amazing collection of historical films with worker safety themes. The latest were produced by the U.S. Federal Security Agency’s Office of Education in 1944, entitled “Problems in Supervision: Instructing Workers on the Job.”  They were produced for the federal government by […]
The Washington Postâs Sholnn Freeman, noting that the last six fatal airplane accidents in the US involved regional airlines, investigated the conditions of regional air crewmembers and found that they struggle to get adequate sleep near the airports from which they fly: At first sight, the Sterling Park house looks like an ordinary split-level, complete […]
For a lot of us, summer means sitting in air-conditioned offices and complaining to our co-workers about how hot it is outside. For farmworkers, summers mean hours of toil under a hot sun, in conditions that can be fatal. Working in the heat doesnât have to mean death, as long as workers can rest in […]
I’m reading a wonderful collection of public health success stories, in the collection assembled by John W. Ward and Christian Warren entitled “Silent Victories: The History and Practice of Public Health in 20th Century America” (Oxford, 2007.) Our colleagues Tony Robbins and Phil Landrigan wrote a chapter on occupational disease and injury prevention, and in […]
In May, the Government Accountability Office issued a critical report assessing OSHA’s program for monitoring its designated Voluntary Protection Program (VPP) sites.  There are about 2,200 of these VPP site across the country which have met the written program and on-site evaluation criteria. A VPP designation exempts the worksite from programmed OSHA inspections, and if an inspection is conducted—because of a complaint, referral or fatality/catastrophe—-the employer […]