Richard Stickler, the Asst. Secretary for MSHA, announced a new educational campaign to increase awareness about black lung disease. This latest initiative comes in response to surveillance data showing newly diagnosed cases of progressive massive fibrosis (PMF) among miners working in Lee County and Wise County, Virginia.  Stickler’s “Control the Dust/Prevent Black Lung” campaign, which includes a personal letter sent to each and every underground coal mine […]
Breaking news: Another contract worker has been killed on the job at BPâs Texas City refinery â the site of the deadly 2005 explosion that took 15 workersâ lives. The worker, whose name has not been released, was electrocuted while working on an idle unit that was being reconditioned. Stress on the job has been […]
OSHA issued an advanced notice of proposed rulemaking (ANPRM) asking for public input for a possible new safety regulation on mechanical power presses. The existing OSHA regulation is based on a 1971 standard issued by the American National Standards Institute. The ANPRM lists 37 specific questions, and the responses provided by commenters will help the agency decide whether […]
By Peter Dooley The stories of injury and illness among workers at the Toyota Georgetown plant (reported in the Washington Post story this past week) remind us all about the plight of workers without representation in their workplace. Facing termination after an injury, being transferred to a less desirable job or being discriminated against for standing up for basic rights […]
The editors at the Charleston Gazette and the Louisville Courier-Journal deserve a pat on the back for allowing their reporters to follow-up on worker safety and health stories.  Ken Ward at the Charleston Gazette is still covering important matters related to MSHA and the Sago mine, more than 15 months after the terrible January 2, 2006 disaster.  In “MSHA […]
Caution: Put down your fork before reading this post. In a recent op-ed published in the Baltimore Sun, colleagues at Johns Hopkins University put in perspective the recent revelations about contaminated animal feed imported from China. …we should be at least as concerned about the “business as usual” ingredients that are routinely fed to the […]
“On January 11, 2006, my husband and best friend, Clyde Jones, was taken from me and the children, family, friends and community…  He went to work one morning for the City that he loved to a job that he loved.  He never came home.” These are the words of Casey Jones, yet another heart-broken wife left widowed by a preventable […]
Tammy has posted another edition of the Weekly Toll: Death in the American Workplace at her Weekly Toll blog. It gives short writeups on 57 workplace deaths, including the following: * David Kessler, Jr., a 27-year-old communications worker from Marysville, Washington, died of severe shock after coming into contact with an electrical wire at the […]
Manuel Roig-Franzia at the Washington Post reports that over the past six years, more than 30 journalists have been killed in Mexico, and countless more have been kidnapped. Grenades have been thrown into newspaper offices in Cancun, Hermosillo and Nuevo Laredo, and last week, a newspaper in Sonora announced that it was temporarily shutting down […]
By Liz Borkowski While weâre waiting to hear what EPA and ConAgra have learned from studying emissions from microwave popcorn, itâs worth remembering that airborne artificial butter flavoring isnât the only concern associated with this particular convenience food. Rebecca Renner reported last year in Environmental Science & Technology about a study by FDA scientists on consumer […]