The headlines in Detroit are focused on the city’s financial woes, but the city’s future is at additional risk because of lead poisoned children in the city’s public schools.
Environmental Health
A food safety inspector’s warning about chemicals and bacteria under USDA’s proposed poultry inspection “modernization”
After nearly three decades as a USDA food safety inspector, Stan Painter tells me he now feels like “window dressing standing at the end of the line as product whizzes by.”
EPA delays an announcement about a carcinogen found in some tap water on the advice of a scientific panel that’s ostensibly unbiased — but an investigation into panelists’ backgrounds finds some troubling conflicts of interest.
Half of the doctors recently surveyed aren’t aware that drug and device companies will soon have to report all the payments they make to doctors and hospitals.
Cancer
Obama Administration’s silence on silica is deafening, 2 years and counting for OSHA proposal
Imagine an organization that is given 90 days to complete a task, but after two years still hasn’t finished the job. When you ask them ‘when we’ll you be done?’ they respond with ‘no comment.’ That’s what’s happening with a Labor Dept rule to protect workers from respirable silica.
Is an examination of social factors contributing to disease part of the physician’s job description?
Food Safety & Nutrition
How will USDA respond to environmental justice concerns for poultry plant workers?
I’m eager to see how USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack responds to the environmental justice concerns raised about the Food Safety Inspection Services’ proposed regulation on poultry plant inspections.
Infectious Diseases & Vaccines
Our Washington Post local op-ed: DC meals shouldn’t come with a side of the flu
Our Washington Post local opinion piece addresses a problematic exemption in a DC law.
Education
Study: Despite health risks tied to industrial food animal production, health departments have little involvement
A couple years ago, two public health researchers attended a hearing about the possible expansion of an industrial food animal production facility. During the hearing, a community member stood up to say that if the expansion posed any hazards, the health department would surely be there to protect the people. The two researchers knew that probably wasn’t the case.
A few recent pieces worth a look