At last week’s annual meeting of the American Public Health Association (APHA), the organization adopted more than a dozen new policy resolutions which will guide its work into the future. Included among them was a call for “Congress to fundamentally restructure the Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976 (TSCA)” so that more attention is paid to the […]
Updated Below I had thought that with the Democrats takeover of Congress, weâd be done with Congressional hearings convened so anti-regulatory groups like the US Chamber of Commerce would have a platform to present unscientific studies that purport to show the enormous damage done by federal regulatory policy. Sadly, I was wrong. Last week, the […]
The Charleston Gazette’s Ken Ward, one of the few reporters in the country who writes consistently about worker health and safety issues, is featured on EXPOSE: America’s Investigative Reports. The episode entitled “Sustained Outrage” depicts Ward’s approach to covering coal mine disasters like the 2006 Sago tragedy: “When other reporters are zigging, I’m zagging,” describing his talent for investigating these fatalities well beyond the headline and […]
Workers dying from asphyxiation in a confined space is a senseless tragedy. When four men lose their lives in this way, with three of them dying in an attempt to rescue the other, it is a genuine disaster.  Yesterday, four men died inside a 12-foot deep sewer line at the Lakehead Blacktop Demolition Landfill in the Village of Superior, Wisconsin. County Sheriff […]
Three young widows of Harlan County are taking a stand against incumbent Kentucky Governor Ernie Fletcher (R). An op-ed by Claudia Cole, Stella Morris, and Melissa Lee appeared in the Lexington Herald Leader, with harsh words about the Governor’s record on mine safety and rights for victims’ families. “Gov. Ernie Fletcher has disrespected our families and has not […]
The OSHA Fairness Coalition weighed in with some fightin’ words yesterday, expressing “unequivocal opposition” to a mine safety bill scheduled for mark-up in the House Education and Labor Committee. This is the same group that opposed the “Popcorn Workers Lung Disease Prevention Act” when it successfully moved through Congress in September. At that time, we wondered what the Messenger Courier […]
We’ve been following the crescendo of stories illustrating the severe limitations of the Consumer Product Safety Commission (here, here, and here): CPSC lacks the resources to test products adequately, it canât levy hefty enough fines to deter corporate wrongdoing, and it can announce a recall only through a news release that it negotiates with the […]
[Updated (10/30/07) below] Representatives from the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) and the Chamber of Commerce met this week with White House Office of Management and Budget in a last-ditch effort to influence OSHAâs rule clarifying employersâ obligation to pay for workers’ personal protective equipment (e.g., safety goggles, metatarsal boots, gloves). They likely repeated their claims […]
In late September, Topps Meat Company recalled 21.7 million pounds of ground beef for possible contamination with E. coli O157:H7, which can leave consumers with bloody diarrhea and, in the worse cases, kidney failure and death. The recall put Topps out of business, but the problem goes beyond a single company. In todayâs New York […]
Shawn Boone was only 33 years old in 2003 when he was fatally burned from several violent explosions at the Hayes Lemmerz plant in Huntington, Indiana. The plant manufactured cast aluminum automotive wheels.  These firey blasts, which also severely burned two other workers, were fueled by aluminum dust which had accumulated in the plant. That same year, chemical dust-fueled explosions at CTA Acoustics in […]