| Evidence “strongly suggests a causal link between chemical vapor releases and subsequent health effects" at a Washington facility, according to a recent report. (Ellery / Wikimedia Commons) Since March 2014, nearly 60 workers at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington state have sought medical attention for on-the-job exposure to chemical vapors released by highly toxic waste stored at the site, some as recently as August. At a public meeting held Wednesday in Pasco, Washington, Hanford workers described symptoms that include chronic headaches, respiratory problems, nerve damage and bloody urine. The meeting, hosted by the United Association (U.A.) of Plumbers and Steamfitters Local 598 and Hanford Challenge, a Seattle-based environmental watchdog group, was convened following the February 10 release by Department of Energy contractor Washington River Protection Services (WRPS) of a “corrective action implementation plan.” This plan was developed in response to recommendations in a report from the Savannah River National Laboratory released in October 2014. Commissioned in response to worker exposures at Hanford’s tank farms, the Savannah River report found ongoing emissions of toxic chemical vapors from waste tanks, inadequate worker health and safety procedures and evidence that “strongly suggests a causal link between chemical vapor releases and subsequent health effects.” The underground storage tanks—known as... [Click... |
Thursday, March 5, 2015
Union, Environmental Group Say Dozens of Nuclear Workers Suffering from Toxic Materials Exposure
The Extra Cost Of Extra Weight For Older Adults
Bayou La Batre calls itself the seafood capital of Alabama. Residents here depend on fishing and shrimping for their livelihood, and when they sit down to eat, they like most things fried.
It’s here that former U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Regina Benjamin has been trying to reverse the nation’s obesity epidemic one patient at a time. Benjamin grew up near Bayou La Batre and has run a health clinic in this town of seafood workers and ship builders since 1990. As obesity became commonplace around the U.S., health care providers like Benjamin began seeing the impacts of obesity all around them.
“We saw our patient population get heavier,” Benjamin said. “We saw chronic diseases start to rise, and if we continued, our entire community would totally be crippled, basically, based on chronic diseases.”
Two major trends are on a collision course here, as in the rest of the United States: a decades-long surge in obesity and the aging of the U.S. population. Today, one out of every three adults in the U.S. are clinically obese, and many who have lived for decades with excess weight, diabetes and heart disease are now heading into their senior years. Obese people are far more likely to become sick or disabled as they age, and researchers say this burgeoning demographic will strain hospitals and nursing homes.
“We’re potentially going to have a larger, older population that’s more likely to be obese,...
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Injured Workers Suffer As 'Reforms' Limit Workers' Compensation Benefits
Jeff Swensen for ProPublica
Dennis Whedbee's crew was rushing to prepare an oil well for pumping on the Sweet Grass Woman lease site, a speck of dusty plains rich with crude in Mandaree, N.D.
It was getting late that September afternoon in 2012. Whedbee, a 50-year-old derrick hand, was helping another worker remove a pipe fitting on top of the well when it suddenly blew.
Oil and sludge pressurized at more than 700 pounds per square inch tore into Whedbee's body, ripping his left arm off just below the elbow. Co-workers jury-rigged a tourniquet from a sweatshirt and a ratchet strap to stanch his bleeding and got his wife on the phone.
"Babe," he said, "tell everyone I love them."
It was exactly the sort of accident that workers' compensation was designed for.
Until...
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Dennis Whedbee's crew was rushing to prepare an oil well for pumping on the Sweet Grass Woman lease site, a speck of dusty plains rich with crude in Mandaree, N.D.
It was getting late that September afternoon in 2012. Whedbee, a 50-year-old derrick hand, was helping another worker remove a pipe fitting on top of the well when it suddenly blew.
Oil and sludge pressurized at more than 700 pounds per square inch tore into Whedbee's body, ripping his left arm off just below the elbow. Co-workers jury-rigged a tourniquet from a sweatshirt and a ratchet strap to stanch his bleeding and got his wife on the phone.
"Babe," he said, "tell everyone I love them."
It was exactly the sort of accident that workers' compensation was designed for.
Until...
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The workers’ compensation system is broken — and it’s driving people into poverty
There’s a good news/bad news situation for occupational injuries in the United States: Fewer people are getting hurt on the job. But those who do are getting less help.
That’s according to a couple of important new reports out Wednesday on how the system for cleaning up workplace accidents is broken -- both because of the changing circumstances of the people who are getting injured, and the disintegration of programs that are supposed to pay for them.
The first comes from the Department of Labor, which aims to tie the 3 million workplace injuries reported per year -- the number is actually much higher, because many workers fear raising the issue with their employers -- into the ongoing national conversation about inequality. In an overview of research on the topic, the agency finds that low-wage workers (especially Latinos) have disproportionately high injury rates, and that injuries can slice 15 percent off a person’s earnings over 10 years after the accident.
“Income inequality is a very active conversation led by the White House,” David Michaels, director of the Occupational Health and Safety Administration, said in an interview. “Injuries are knocking many families out of the middle class, and block many low-wage workers from getting out of poverty. So we think it’s an important component of this conversation.”
There are two main components to the financial implications of a workplace injury. The first is the legal...
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That’s according to a couple of important new reports out Wednesday on how the system for cleaning up workplace accidents is broken -- both because of the changing circumstances of the people who are getting injured, and the disintegration of programs that are supposed to pay for them.
The first comes from the Department of Labor, which aims to tie the 3 million workplace injuries reported per year -- the number is actually much higher, because many workers fear raising the issue with their employers -- into the ongoing national conversation about inequality. In an overview of research on the topic, the agency finds that low-wage workers (especially Latinos) have disproportionately high injury rates, and that injuries can slice 15 percent off a person’s earnings over 10 years after the accident.
“Income inequality is a very active conversation led by the White House,” David Michaels, director of the Occupational Health and Safety Administration, said in an interview. “Injuries are knocking many families out of the middle class, and block many low-wage workers from getting out of poverty. So we think it’s an important component of this conversation.”
There are two main components to the financial implications of a workplace injury. The first is the legal...
[Click here to see the rest of this post]
Tuesday, March 3, 2015
2016 Budget Proposal Would Require Reporting of Workers’ Compensation Benefits to Social Security Administration
The Social Security Administration (SSA) has been vocal in the past about its difficulty in obtaining information about workers’ compensation benefits. The primary reason that the SSA has been seeking this information is to reduce social security benefits by way of an SSDI/WC offset. The SSDI/WC offset is a calculation used by the SSA to reduce a beneficiary’s SSDI benefit amount if the person is also receiving workers’ compensation benefits. The SSDI/WC offset is different in every state and applies only when the individual's combined monthly amounts of SSDI and workers' compensation are greater than 80% of individual's pre-disability "average current earnings.”
The SSA currently has to rely on beneficiaries to report to the SSA when they receive workers’ compensation or public disability benefits. President Obama’s 2016 budget proposal includes a provision to establish a new federal requirement that workers’ compensation and public disability benefit information be provided by states, local governments, and private insurers to the SSA.
The budget proposal summary includes the narrative below:
Establish Workers’ Compensation Information Reporting. Current law requires SSA to reduce an individual’s Disability Insurance (DI) benefit if he or she receives workers’ compensation (WC) or public disability benefits (PDB). SSA currently relies upon beneficiaries to report when they receive these benefits. This proposal...
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The SSA currently has to rely on beneficiaries to report to the SSA when they receive workers’ compensation or public disability benefits. President Obama’s 2016 budget proposal includes a provision to establish a new federal requirement that workers’ compensation and public disability benefit information be provided by states, local governments, and private insurers to the SSA.
The budget proposal summary includes the narrative below:
Establish Workers’ Compensation Information Reporting. Current law requires SSA to reduce an individual’s Disability Insurance (DI) benefit if he or she receives workers’ compensation (WC) or public disability benefits (PDB). SSA currently relies upon beneficiaries to report when they receive these benefits. This proposal...
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Patients with workers' compensation have inferior outcomes after hip arthroscopy
Patients with worker’s compensation claims had inferior functional outcomes after hip arthroscopy compared with a non-workers’ compensation group, according to study findings.
Over a 2-year period, researchers compared the outcomes of 26 patients with workers’ compensation claims who underwent hip arthroscopy with those of 30 patients who did not have a workers’ compensation claim. All of the patients had at least 6 months’ worth of follow-up data available.
The researchers used the Hip Outcome Score and the modified Harris Hip Score to assess patients’ postoperative functional outcomes.
Wilcoxon test results showed patients in the workers’ compensation group had a significantly lower Hip Outcome Score than the non-workers’ compensation group (66.5 vs. 89.4). However, the between-group difference for modified Harris Hip Score was not considered significant (72.5 vs. 75.6), according to the researchers.
Patients in the workers’ compensation group had an average time between injury to surgery of 11 months, and four patients required additional surgery. One complication, deep venous thrombosis, was diagnosed in the workers’ compensation group at 1 week postoperatively, but this was treated with oral anticoagulation. The non-workers’ compensation group required no additional surgery, nor were any complications reported.
At the most recent follow-up, 15 patients in the workers’ compensation group were able to go...
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Over a 2-year period, researchers compared the outcomes of 26 patients with workers’ compensation claims who underwent hip arthroscopy with those of 30 patients who did not have a workers’ compensation claim. All of the patients had at least 6 months’ worth of follow-up data available.
The researchers used the Hip Outcome Score and the modified Harris Hip Score to assess patients’ postoperative functional outcomes.
Wilcoxon test results showed patients in the workers’ compensation group had a significantly lower Hip Outcome Score than the non-workers’ compensation group (66.5 vs. 89.4). However, the between-group difference for modified Harris Hip Score was not considered significant (72.5 vs. 75.6), according to the researchers.
Patients in the workers’ compensation group had an average time between injury to surgery of 11 months, and four patients required additional surgery. One complication, deep venous thrombosis, was diagnosed in the workers’ compensation group at 1 week postoperatively, but this was treated with oral anticoagulation. The non-workers’ compensation group required no additional surgery, nor were any complications reported.
At the most recent follow-up, 15 patients in the workers’ compensation group were able to go...
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Nurse Who Contracted Ebola in the U.S. Sues Her Hospital Employer
The nurse who was the first person to contract Ebola in the United States filed suit on Monday against the Dallas hospital where she worked, saying it knowingly left workers without the training or equipment needed to handle the disease.
The nurse, Nina Pham, 26, was one of two at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital who were infected while treating Thomas Eric Duncan, who had the virus when he arrived from the West African country of Liberia.
Ms. Pham’s suit, filed in State District Court in Dallas, accuses the hospital’s parent company, Texas Health Resources, of negligence, fraud and invasion of privacy. Not only did the hospital expose her to a deadly disease, she contends, it also made false statements about her condition and released video of her without her permission.
A Texas Health spokesman, Wendell Watson, said Ms. Pham was “still a member of our team,” and declined to address the specific claims. He added, “We remain optimistic that we can resolve this matter.”
Ms. Pham has been free of Ebola for months, but she has lingering medical and emotional problems, and the long-term consequences remain unclear, said her lawyer, Charla Aldous.
“She still has fatigue and body aches,” and has not been able to return to work, Ms. Aldous said. “She’s been having some liver problems. Her hair started falling out.”
Mr. Duncan went to the hospital’s emergency room on Sept. 25 with fever, nausea and abdominal pain,...
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The nurse, Nina Pham, 26, was one of two at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital who were infected while treating Thomas Eric Duncan, who had the virus when he arrived from the West African country of Liberia.
Ms. Pham’s suit, filed in State District Court in Dallas, accuses the hospital’s parent company, Texas Health Resources, of negligence, fraud and invasion of privacy. Not only did the hospital expose her to a deadly disease, she contends, it also made false statements about her condition and released video of her without her permission.
A Texas Health spokesman, Wendell Watson, said Ms. Pham was “still a member of our team,” and declined to address the specific claims. He added, “We remain optimistic that we can resolve this matter.”
Ms. Pham has been free of Ebola for months, but she has lingering medical and emotional problems, and the long-term consequences remain unclear, said her lawyer, Charla Aldous.
“She still has fatigue and body aches,” and has not been able to return to work, Ms. Aldous said. “She’s been having some liver problems. Her hair started falling out.”
Mr. Duncan went to the hospital’s emergency room on Sept. 25 with fever, nausea and abdominal pain,...
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