Lena works in a turkey processing plant in Iowa. She’s up by 5:30 am, eats sensibly, is not overweight and has never smoked tobacco. Lena should be the picture of health, but her job makes her feel much older than her 32 years. Over her 10-hour work shift, she makes about 20,000 cuts on the […]
Affordable Care Act
Promoting the “general welfare,” as in providing affordable, quality health care in the U.S.
After being sworn-in on Wednesday (1/5/11), the new Republican-controlled House of Representatives are promising to do at least two things this week: (1) read on the House floor the U.S. Constitution, and (2) repeal the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), the healthcare overhaul bill that was signed into law by President Obama in […]
By the end of 2011, the Labor Department’s worker safety agencies expect to issue six new rules to better protect workers from on-the-job hazards. In the Department’s regulatory plan issued yesterday, OSHA projects it will finalize four rules while MSHA expects to complete two new standards. As I’ve written before, these plans quickly become stale […]
Updated 12/21/2010 Every two weeks, OSHA issues a mini-newsletter called Quick Takes about the agency’s activities and other worker health and safety news. The twice monthly electronic publication highlights 8-12 items and nearly always includes at least one report of a major enforcement action. I looked back at the OSHA Quick Takes from early 2010 […]
As I’ve previously written, a minor revision to the form on which some U.S. employers are required to record work-related injuries remains stuck in the office of the White House’s regulatory czar. His review has now extended for 145 days. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) collects a sample of these forms annually to estimate […]
Nearly a month ago, I made predictions about what we might read in OSHA’s and MSHA’s regulatory agendas. The Administration’s regulatory plan is supposed to be published in October; it’s been an annual requirement since 1993 (see Executive Order 12866.) When I wrote my post last month, the Obama Administration was already a few days […]
The US Senate passed today the Food Safety Modernization Act on a by a 73 to 25 vote. More than a dozen Republican Senators broke ranks with their leadership and voted in favor of the bill: Alexander (TN), Brown (MA), Burr (NC), Collins (ME), Enzi (WY), Grassley (IA), Gregg (NH), Johanns (NE), Kirk (IL), LeMieux […]
Cancer
“It’s on our website”: an insufficient response to asbestos danger lurking in millons of attics
No doubt that a federal agency’s website can be a useful public relations tool. We all have much better access now to government data, reports and other records. That’s certainly a good thing. But even the most content-rich website cannot substitute for other forms of communication and information sharing. Yet more and more lately I’m […]
Our friend and APHA OHS colleague Mark Catlin has assembled on YouTube an amazing collection of more than 500 environmental health and safety film clips. The video collection contain footage dating back to the 1920’s, with loads WWII-era films produced by the U.S. military, Public Health Service and companies promoting tires, asbestos, oil, steel, tetraethyl […]
A second, more powerful explosion today rocked the Pike River coal mine in Greymouth, New Zealand. This event forced government and company officials to declare that the 29 miners are surely dead. The initial blast occurred on Friday, Nov 19 deep in the mine and rescue attempts had been thwarted by dangerous gas levels. The […]