The National Cancer Institute (NC!) reports that over 230,000 males in the US will diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2013 and that 29,790 deaths will result. David DePaolo, published of WorkCompCentral®, writes today of the potential new wave of workers' compensation claims arising from the association of whole-body vibration syndrome (WBV) experienced by truck drivers and its relationship to prostate cancer. He links source material to support the argument. This post is shared from http://daviddepaolo.blogspot.com .
You just never know what the next big risk category is going to be in workers' compensation. I had been persuaded by an argument offered by Charlie Kingdollar, Vice President emerging issues unit for General Re Corp., that nanomaterials would be the next asbestos. OSHA has been particularly concerned with silica in the past couple of years. The more recent concern trends have been obesity (in particular now that the American Medical Association suggests that it is a disease), opioids, and a little bit earlier it seems the claims trends were carpal tunnel syndrome and fibromyalgia. Hearing loss seems to crop up from time to time, though not as an ongoing trend since that process is easily remedied through safe practices. But it's more often than not something much less spectacular that really drives frequency and severity in simultaneous fashion, and a 2012 study published in the Annals of Occupational Hygiene may have identified "the next... |
