Workers suffering the ‘lethal legacy’ of a General Electric plant in Canada fight for compensation; OSHA looks into an Arizona commission that routinely reduces penalties for safety violations; advocates ponder the future of OSHA’s Severe Violator Enforcement Program; and millions of workers get a raise in the new year.
Canada’s Ministries of Science, Health, Public Services,and Environment will be working over the next year to ban asbestos. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government made the announcement today.
EPA announced yesterday a proposed rule to ban trichloroethylene as a spot-cleaning agent in dry cleaning operations and as an aerosol spray degreaser. The agency is again moving swiftly to use its authority under a chemical safety law.
Canada’s Supreme Court ruled on June 24 that breast cancer can be considered work-related under the country’s workers’ compensation law. Three women who were employed as lab technicians at a hospital in British Columbia argued that the hormone-mimicking chemicals in their workplace was a factor in developing breast cancer.
President Obama called out asbestos as the key example of why the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act is needed. He signed it into law today.
Cancer
The Donald ignorant on public health, too: Asbestos widow schools Trump about the “magic mineral”
Donald Trump is ignorant about many things and we can add asbestos to the list. Linda Reinstein’s husband died too young from cancer caused by asbestos. She schools Trump about exposure to the deadly mineral.
Cancer
Bringing the anti-asbestos movement into the future: A conversation with two young worker safety advocates
The road toward eliminating the threat of asbestos has been long, slow-moving, incredibly frustrating and littered with significant hurdles. Thankfully, advocates like Linda Reinstein, who lost her husband to asbestos-related disease in 2003, refuse to get discouraged.
Reveal investigates the toll of nuclear testing on the country’s “atomic vets”; federal labor officials propose new mining safety rules; D.C. officials vote in support of a $15 minimum wage; and an Amazon employee writes a first-person account from inside one of the company’s warehouses.
Reporter Andrew Schneider has written a sequel to his 2004 book “An Air That Kills: How the Asbestos Poisoning of Libby, Montana Uncovered a National Scandal.” The new book covers the unsuccessful criminal trial against W.R. Grace, and the legacy of a deadly form of asbestos from Libby that fills millions of attics across the U.S.
I’m marking Global Awareness Asbestos Week by shaming some companies in San Antonio, TX for exposing workers and the community to asbestos.