NTSB kicks train union out of crash investigation

Railroad safety continues to be examined following the train crash in New York last week. This post is shared from cnn.com.
Repair efforts are under way Tuesday, December 3, at the site of a recent train derailment in the Bronx. At least four people were killed and more than 60 people were injured after a Metro-North...

The NTSB said it has booted the rail union from its investigation into the weekend's deadly train derailment for violating confidentiality rules.

The agency made the announcement late Tuesday night, hours after a union representative told CNN that the train engineer apparently "was nodding off and caught himself too late" before the accident.

The train derailment Sunday killed four people and injured 67 others in New York.

In its announcement, the NTSB specifically cited those comments as the violation.

Anthony Bottalico, the union representative, told CNN that engineer William Rockefeller Jr. recognizes his responsibility in the incident.

"I think most people are leaning towards human error," Bottalico said.

Rockefeller's lawyer, Jeffrey Chartier, characterized what happened as "highway hypnosis." He said his client had had a full night's sleep before the crash, and had no disciplinary record.

In a brief conversation with investigators, Rockefeller said that moments before the derailment of the Hudson Line train in the Bronx he was "going along and I'm in a daze. I don't know what happened," according to a law enforcement official familiar with that conversation.

Rockefeller spoke to Metropolitan Transportation Authority and New York Police detectives at the crash site before he was taken to the hospital Sunday.

According to NTSB representatives,...

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Wage Strikes Planned at Fast-Food Outlets

Today's post was shared by Steven Greenhouse and comes from www.nytimes.com

Seeking to increase pressure on McDonald’s, Wendy’s and other fast-food restaurants, organizers of a movement demanding a $15-an-hour wage for fast-food workers say they will sponsor one-day strikes in 100 cities on Thursday and protest activities in 100 additional cities. As the movement struggles to find pressure points in its quest for substantially higher wages for workers, organizers said strikes were planned for the first time in cities like Charleston, S.C.; Providence, R.I.; and Pittsburgh. The protests have expanded greatly since November 2012, when 200 fast-food workers engaged in a one-day strike at more than 20 restaurants in New York City, the first such walkout in the history of the nation’s fast-food industry. “There’s been pretty huge growth in one year,” said Kendall Fells, one of the movement’s main organizers. “People understand that a one-day strike is not going to get them there. They understand that this needs to continue to grow.” The movement, which includes the groups Fast Food Forward and Fight for 15, is part of a growing union-backed effort by low-paid workers — including many Walmart workers and workers for federal contractors — that seeks to focus attention on what the groups say are inadequate wages. The fast-food effort is backed by the Service Employees International Union and is also demanding that restaurants allow workers to unionize without the threat of...

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NTSB LAUNCHES GO-TEAM TO NEW YORK CITY TO INVESTIGATE METRO NORTH TRAIN ACCIDENT

The National Transportation Safety Board has launched a go-team to investigate the Metro North passenger train accident in New York City, which occurred at approximately 7:20 a.m. ET today.

Rail Safety Investigator Mike Flanigon will serve as the investigator-in-charge. He will lead a team consisting of investigative specialists in track, signals, mechanical systems, operations, human performance, survival factors and recorders. Specialists from the NTSB Office of Transportation Disaster Assistance are also responding to the scene. 

Board Member Earl Weener is accompanying the team and will serve as the principal spokesman during the on-scene phase of the investigation.

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Medicare’s Failure to Track Doctors Wastes Billions on Name-Brand Drugs

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Addiction Specialists Wary of New Painkiller

Today's post was shared by The New York Times and comes from www.nytimes.com

Addiction experts protested loudly when the Food and Drug Administration approved a powerful new opioid painkiller last month, saying that it would set off a wave of abuse much as OxyContin did when it first appeared. An F.D.A. panel had earlier voted, 11 to 2, against approval of the drug, Zohydro, in part because unlike current versions of OxyContin, it is not made in a formulation designed to deter abuse. Now a new issue is being raised about Zohydro. The drug will be manufactured by the same company, Alkermes, that makes a popular medication called Vivitrol, used to treat patients addicted to painkillers or alcohol. In addition, the company provides financial support to a leading professional group that represents substance abuse experts, the American Society of Addiction Medicine. For some critics, the company’s multiple roles in the world of painkillers is troubling. Dr. Gregory L. Jones, an addiction specialist in Louisville, Ky., said he had long been concerned about financial links between the group and the drug industry, adding that the Zohydro situation amplified those potential conflicts. Dr. Stuart Gitlow, the current president of the American Society of Addiction Medicine, said he had been unaware until now of Alkermes’s involvement with Zohydro. Dr. Gitlow, who is affiliated with Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City, said that the group would seek more information from Alkermes about the situation and then decide what, if anything, to do next. ...

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Leading Coal Industry Law Firm Withheld Evidence of Black Lung Disease

Today's post was shared by FairWarning and comes from www.fairwarning.org

A miner’s struggle for benefits due to black lung disease spotlights aggressive tactics by a mining company law firm. Jackson Kelly recently was named by U.S. News & World Report as the nation’s top firm in mining law. But its actions are sometimes unethical, according to current and former judges, lawyers and state disciplinary officials. As a result, sick and dying miners have been denied benefits and affordable medical care. The firm, documents show, over the years has withheld unfavorable evidence and shaped the opinions of doctors reviewing miners’ medical claims by providing the physicians only what the lawyers wanted them to see. In a pending case involving a West Virginia miner named Gary Fox, Jackson Kelly was found to have withheld pathology reports from two doctors who concluded that Fox likely had black lung. The Center for Public Integrity - See more at: http://www.fairwarning.org/2013/10/68752/#sthash.lbQd8rOJ.dpuf

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Leaked documents reveal the secret finances of a pro-industry science group

As the judicial system is bombarded with evidential scientific research in order to ascertain the truth, the research process itself is subject to being influenced. Today's post is shared from MotherJones.org and describes what happens when so-called "independent research" becomes tainted. The American Council on Science and Health bills itself as an independent research and advocacy organization devoted to debunking "junk science." It's a controversial outfit—a "group of scientists…concerned that many important public policies related to health and the environment did not have a sound scientific basis," it says—that often does battle with environmentalists and consumer safety advocates, wading into public health debates to defend fracking, to fight New York City's attempt to ban big sugary sodas, and to dismiss concerns about the potential harms of the chemical bisphenol-A (better known at BPA) and the pesticide atrazine. The group insists that its conclusions are driven purely by science. It acknowledges that it receives some financial support from corporations and industry groups, but ACSH, which reportedly stopped disclosing its corporate donors two decades ago, maintains that these contributions don't influence its work and agenda. Yet internal financial documents (read them here) provided to Mother Jones show that ACSH depends heavily on funding from corporations that have a financial stake in the scientific debates it aims to shape. The group also directly solicits donations from these industry sources around specific issues. ACSH's financial links to corporations involved in hot-button health and safety controversies have been highlighted in the past, but these documents offer a more extensive...

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Jersey City Mayor Signs Country’s Seventh Paid Sick Days Law

Today's post was shared by Steven Greenhouse and comes from thinkprogress.org

On Monday morning, Jersey City, NJ Mayor Steven Fulop signed the city’s paid sick days bill into law, which had been passed by the city council in September. The bill is now the seventh to become law in the country, joining New York City; Portland, OR; San Francisco, CA; Seattle, WA; and Washington, DC as well as the state of Connecticut. Employers in the city with 10 or more workers will now have to provide them with up to five days of paid sick leave a year, with workers earning a day off for each 30 days worked. Workers at smaller businesses will have the right to earn unpaid sick days. Over 30,000 workers who previously had no access to paid sick leave are expected to benefit. The push for paid sick days legislation at the state and city level is growing. State-wide efforts are underway in Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Vermont. Newark, NJ and Tacoma, WA are also fighting for such bills, and an effort is underway in Washington, DC to expand the city’s current policy to tipped workers. The evidence from those places that already have laws on the books shows that they are good for business and the economy. Job growth has been stronger under Seattle’s law and business growth is also strong. San Francisco’s law has strong business support and spurred job growth. Washington DC’s had no negative impact on business, while Connecticut’s has come with little cost and big potential upsides. Meanwhile, lost...

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Computer woes plague Pa. worker comp system

Today's post was shared from philly.com.

New software was designed to modernize the process of filing claims. Instead, the opposite has happened, according to interviews with attorneys, judges and others who use the system.

The glitches range from being unable to upload claims or other supporting legal documents into the system to having court paperwork disappear.

The result: Injured workers and their lawyers have been unable to get hearings, creating a backlog of cases at the Labor and Industry Department's Bureau of Workers' Compensation.

Attorneys for workers, employers and insurance companies are, in some cases, not getting notified of decisions in their cases. And judges and their staff have even been unable to upload critical documents into the system.

"The intent was good, but the delivery has failed," said Philadelphia attorney Leonard A. Cohen, who represents injured workers and who is on a steering committee working with the state to oversee the implementation of the system. "We are all in favor of hanging in here. But in the meantime, the [new software] is causing the system to almost come to a halt."

The new system, designed by New York-based Deloitte Consulting LLC, went live on September 9 and the problems started immediately.

Cohen said he has filed 20 petitions on behalf of clients seeking workers' compensation since early September, and not one has been assigned to a...


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Bangladesh: Is Worker Safety Failing in the Global Supply Chain?

The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire that killed 146 workers in New York City more than 100 years ago probably is the worst single workplace tragedy in U.S. history. Workplace safety and health reforms followed the fire and eventually led to the signing of the Occupational Safety and Health Act and the creation of OSHA and MSHA. Unions gained strength and demanded safer working conditions for members. And now, modern building codes demand certain standards of construction, as well as sprinkler systems, warning systems, appropriate storage of flammable goods, an appropriate number of exits and the ability to access those exits. Download the pdf of the Bangladesh features. But as U.S. corporations shifted the bulk of their manufacturing overseas, how responsible should they have been for contractors that set up shop in countries where production is the only concern? Should U.S. and European companies bear some responsibility for the welfare of their contractors’ employees? The authors of the articles in this special section say that yes, the multinational companies doing business in countries like Bangladesh and Pakistan have a moral responsibility to improve the working conditions and safety of the people who manufacture their clothing and other products. After all, manufacturing in Bangladesh is big business: The ready-made garment (RMG) sector in Bangladesh exported goods worth more than $20 billion in the past year; nearly 12 percent more than a year earlier. The...

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New York City workers have high pesticide exposure

Workers in New York have something else to worry about now...pesticide exposure. Today's post was shared by FairWarning and comes from www.environmentalhealthnews.org

New York City residents are more highly exposed to two types of widely used pesticides than the U.S. average, according to a new study from the city's Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. The findings “underscore the importance of considering pest and pesticide burdens in cities when formulating pesticide use regulations,” the researchers from the city's Department of Health and Mental Hygiene wrote in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives.New York City residents are more highly exposed to two types of widely used pesticides than the U.S. average, according to a new study. Population-based biomonitoring of exposure to organophosphate and pyrethroid pesticides in New York City. Environmental Health Perspectives http://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/1206015/ Organophosphate metabolites were measured in the urine of 882 New Yorkers, while 1,452 residents were tested for pyrethroid metabolites. Some organophosphates have been banned in the United States in recent years, although many are still heavily used in agriculture. Pyrethroids are used indoors and outdoors in sprays and bug bombs to kill fleas, mosquitoes and other pests. Among New Yorkers who were 20 to 59 years old in 2004, the highest exposed group had between two and six times more organophosphates in their urine...

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AIG CEO: Anger over AIG bonuses ‘just as bad’ as lynchings

Today's post was shared by Steven Greenhouse and comes from m.washingtonpost.com

Robert Benmosche (Bloomberg News) AIG's CEO Robert Benmosche -- who came in to rescue the company after the 2008 financial crisis -- told the Wall Street Journal that the outrage over the bonuses promised to AIG's members was just as bad as when white supremacists in the American South used to lynch African Americans: The uproar over bonuses "was intended to stir public anger, to get everybody out there with their pitchforks and their hangman nooses, and all that -- sort of like what we did in the Deep South [decades ago]. And I think it was just as bad and just as wrong." Yes, enduring some public criticism for receiving multimillion-dollar bonuses after helping crash the global economy is a lot like being hanged from a tree by your neck until you die. These kinds of sentiments don't emerge in a vacuum. Benmosche is expressing a view that was pretty common back in 2010 and 2011, when it was kind of a thing for members of the besieged 1 percent to compare public anger over their compensation to the way Nazi Germany treated the weak. There was supermarket mogul John Catsimatidis: "Taxes are going to go up regardless. What I'm afraid of is, we shouldn't punish any one group. Whether we're punishing people who are wealthy," he said. "New York is for everybody; it's for the poor, it's for the middle-class, it's for the wealthy. We can't punish any one group and chase them away. We - I mean, Hitler punished the Jews. We can't have punishing the '2 percent group' right now." ...

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Powerful New Videos Encourage Those Who Qualify to Seek Care through the World Trade Center Health Program

Many victims of the 9-11 World Trade Center terorist attack have not yet sought medical care nor filed a claim for benefits. Today's post was shared by Safe Healthy Workers and comes from blogs.cdc.gov

Glenn, a retired New York City police officer, shares how the World Trade Center Health Program helped him regain his health. Though the September 11th attacks were over a decade ago, thousands of people who were in the affected areas continue to experience physical and mental health symptoms as a result of their experience in the days, months, and even years following 9/11. They may not recognize that some cancers, a chronic cough, difficulty sleeping, or frequent heartburn that they— or their children— experience could be a 9/11 related health condition. NIOSH is teaming up with our community partners to spread the word that help is available through the World Trade Center (WTC) Health Program. Created by the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act of 2010, the WTC Health Program provides medical monitoring and treatment for responders at the World Trade Center and related sites in New York City, the Pentagon, and Shanksville, PA, and for survivors who were in the New York City disaster area. All care for covered conditions is provided at no out of pocket costs for those who qualify. The WTC Health Program has helped thousands regain their health following the September 11th terrorist attacks. This year the Program is launching a digital campaign to make sure that those who may qualify for care, but are not enrolled, get the help they need and deserve. The campaign features videos of members telling their stories. Both responders and survivors describe...

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Speed Camera Enforcement Will Begin on Sepember 9th, the First Day of School

Transportation accidents generate substantial workers' compensation claims. New York City is taking a bold step through the use to technology to change driver safety and reduce accidents. Today's post was shared by WCBlog and comes from mikebloomberg.com

Mayor Bloomberg and Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan today announced enforcement of speed cameras near school locations will take effect on the first day of the school year, Monday, September 9th. The Administration pressed for passage of State legislation to approve the use of speed cameras in New York City for more than a decade, and this year legislation sponsored by Assemblywoman Deborah Glick and State Senator Jeff Klein was approved by the State Legislature and signed into law by Governor Andrew Cuomo. The law provides the City with a significant tool in its efforts to continue to reduce traffic fatalities citywide and curb speeding near schools. The last five years have been the safest since traffic fatality records began being kept in 1910, due to efforts including the use of red-light cameras, pedestrian countdown signals, Neighborhood Slow Zones, aggressive enforcement of traffic laws, safety education campaigns and corridor and intersection redesigns. Traffic fatalities have decreased by 30 percent since 2001, but speeding remained the contributing factor in 81 fatal traffic crashes in 2012, roughly 30 percent, and fatal hit-and-run crashes increased by 31 percent between 2010 and 2012. There is a 70 percent chance a child will be killed if hit by a car at 40 miles per hours, but an 80 percent chance that child survives if hit by a vehicle travelling 30 miles per hour, the City’s speed limit. The law allows the City to implement a speed camera...

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….

Jon L. Gelman of Wayne NJ is the author NJ Workers’ Compensation Law (West-Thompson) and co-author of the national treatise, Modern Workers’ Compensation Law (West-Thompson). For over 4 decades the Law Offices of Jon L Gelman  1.973.696.7900  jon@gelmans.com  have been representing injured workers and their families who have suffered occupational accidents and illnesses.

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World Trade Center Health Program Scientific/Technical Advisory Committee To Meet

World Trade Center Health Program Scientific/Technical Advisory Committee (WTCHP STAC or Advisory Committee), National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) In accordance with section 10(a)(2) of the Federal Advisory Committee Act (Pub. L. 92-463), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), announces the following meeting of the aforementioned committee:

Committee Public Meeting Times and Dates: (All times are Eastern Standard Time) 

• 8:15 a.m.-5 p.m., November 9, 2011, 
• 8 a.m.-12 p.m., November 10, 2011. 

Public Comment Times and Dates: (All times are Eastern Standard Time) 

• 3:15 p.m.-4:15 p.m., November 9, 2011,
• 8:15 a.m.-9:15 a.m., November 10, 2011.

Place: Jacob K. Javits Federal Building, 26 Federal Plaza, New York, New York, 10278.

Background: The Advisory Committee was established by Public Law
111-347 (The James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act of 2010, Title XXXIII of the Public Health Service Act), enacted on January 2, 2011 and codified at 42 U.S.C. 300mm-300mm-61.

Purpose: The purpose of the Advisory Committee is to review scientific and medical evidence and to make recommendations to the World Trade Center (WTC) Program Administrator regarding additional WTC Health Program eligibility criteria and potential additions to the list of covered WTC-related health conditions. Title XXXIII of the Public Health Service Act established within the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the World Trade Center (WTC) Health Program, to be administered by the WTC Program Administrator. The WTC Health Program provides: 

(1) Medical monitoring and treatment benefits to eligible emergency responders and recovery and cleanup workers (including those who are Federal employees) who responded to the September 11, 2011, terrorist attacks, and 

(2) initial health evaluation, monitoring, and treatment benefits to residents and other building occupants and area workers in New York City, who were directly impacted and adversely affected by such attacks (``survivors'').

Matters to be Discussed: The agenda for the Advisory Committee meeting includes: WTC Health Program Overview; Panel Presentations from WTC Responders and Survivors; Presentations from WTC Health Program Medical Monitoring and Treatment Programs and Health Registry; and discussion regarding ways and means of accomplishing the committee's work.

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