ProPublica’s Lost Mothers series on U.S. maternal mortality recently turned its attention to the shockingly high rates of deaths in black women when compared to women of other races and ethnicities.
Children's Health
Study: Washington’s parental counseling law drove vaccine exemptions down 40 percent
On the risk of vaccine exemptions, the science is clear — it would take a relatively small decline in immunization rates to produce big jumps in disease and health care spending. The trick is keeping communities above the danger threshold.
A report released this week by the National Academies calls on federal and state agencies to establish and strengthen the systems for assembling data on work-related injuries, illnesses, and exposure to hazards. The last report of this type was published more than 30 years ago by the National Research Council.
Sanitation workers in the meatpacking industry face life-threatening dangers on the job; number of OSHA inspectors down under Trump; truckers feel the pressure to work while sleep-deprived; and despite increased demand for sexual harassment training, there’s little evidence it actually works.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled late last month to uphold an OSHA rule to protect 2.3 million workers who are exposed to respirable crystalline silica. A three judge panel was not convinced by any of the arguments to reject the OSHA rule that were made by attorneys for the National Association of Home Builders, American Foundry Society, and other industry groups. The judges’ 60-page opinion had this bottom line: “We reject all of Industry’s challenges.”
Recent pieces address how Trump administration moves threaten the census response rate, AIDS prevention efforts, and other crucial work that depends on science; delve into statistics on sexual assault in the US; investigate the working conditions behind Ivanka Trump-branded clothing and accessories; and consider how human bodies and healthcare systems maintain themselves.
The Pump Handle will be on vacation until January 2, 2018. Wishing you happy holidays and good health in the New Year.
An OSHA news release about a $545,000 settlement with Marshall Pottery was strange to me. The agency hadn’t previously announced the willful violations and $830,000 proposed penalty to the firm related to the death earlier this year of employee Arturo Tovar.
The Center for Public Integrity’s Jim Morris writes a soulful account of a plumber named Jim Spencer who was fatally injured on-the-job in 2016. Read it before looking at the new BLS data on the 5,190 worker fatalities from the same year.
Scientific Integrity & Ethics
CDC instructed not to use seven words, including “evidence-based,” in budget documents
We’re fully into Orwellian territory now. The Washington Post’s Lena H. Sun and Juliet Eilperin reported Friday evening that a group of CDC employees were told not to use seven words in official budget documents: “vulnerable,” “fetus,” “transgender,” “entitlement,” “diversity,” “evidence-based,” and “science-based.”