Workers' Compensation

Saturday, October 19, 2013

How OSHA’s West Fertilizer fine stacks up against others

Today's post was shared by FairWarning and comes from watchdogblog.dallasnews.com

After the Occupational Safety and Health Administration proposed $118,300 in fines last week for West Fertilizer and its owner Adair Grain, The Dallas Morning News wanted to see how that fine compared to other OSHA fines. We analyzed the agency’s 56,800 fatality/catastrophe inspections since 2001.

When OSHA found wrongdoing and decided to fine a company, it proposed an average fine of $12,836 before any negotiations or appeals. The agency actually collected an average of $6,010.

Many of the top 25 fines in OSHA’s history are large industrial explosions, usually resulting in multiple deaths, which may be a better comparison to West than the general average. The West explosion, which killed 15 people and injured 300, however, is nowhere close to OSHA’s five largest fines:

1. 2005 BP Texas City explosion, killed 15, injured 170: $84 million in proposed fines
2. 2010 Connecticut power plant explosion, killed six, injured 50: $16.6 million in total proposed fines
3. 1991 IMC Fertilizer/Angus Chemical explosion, killed eight, injured 120: $11.5 million in proposed fines
4. 2008 Imperial Sugar explosion, killed 13, hospitalized 40: $8.8 million in proposed fines
5. 1995 Samsung Guam employee fell from high elevation, killed one: $8.3 million in proposed fines

In fact, OSHA fined West Fertilizer 70 percent of the maximum allowed by law for the number and severity of violations alleged, $118,300 out of a maximum $168,000 fine.
OSHA cited West Fertilizer...

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Labor Group Says Haiti's Factories Are Unsafe

Today's post was shared by Steven Greenhouse and comes from abcnews.go.com

Haiti's garment factories are unsafe for their workers, often lacking marked fire exits, safe drinking water and sufficient toilets, a labor group said Wednesday.

A study by the Geneva-based Better Work organization looked at working conditions in 23 Haitian factories from May to August. It found 13 workplaces were not sufficiently lighted, and 11 failed to clearly mark emergency exits and escape routes. Eleven factories did not have adequate fire-fighting equipment.

It also found that 21 did not have the legally required number of toilets, and the same number didn't have onsite medical facilities and staff.

Henri-Claude Muller-Poitevien, president of a government commission that oversees Haiti's assembly plants, said he welcomed the survey by the labor compliance group, which is supported by the International Labor Organization and the World Bank's International Finance Corporation.
He said his commission is working with Better Work and the fire department to mark emergency exits and install fire-fighting equipment.

"All the buildings need improvement — this is what we are doing now," Muller-Poitevien said. "We definitely want to comply with everything, but we will never be the triple-A student."

Haitian Prime Minister Laurent Lamothe responded on his blog Tuesday night to a separate report from another labor group that alleges assembly plants don't pay their workers even the minimum wage. He said the country is "continuing to build an environment that holds ourselves and...

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Mesothelioma Asbestos Cancer Claims the Life of Ed Lauter, Prolific Actor

Today's post was shared by Linda Reinstein and comes from www.asbestosdiseaseawareness.org

The tragic loss of well-known actor Ed Lauter to mesothelioma, an asbestos-caused cancer, reverberated around the world. Mesothelioma strikes celebrities like Lauter, Steve McQueen and Warren Zevon, but also countless others whose suffering, as the disease chokes off their ability to breathe, is witnessed only by their heartbroken families. In the U.S. alone, 10,000 people die each year of this completely preventable disease.

The asbestos victim of 2013 is often someone who hugged Daddy when he came home from work with asbestos on his clothes, or did her husband’s asbestos-covered laundry. Why, then, are we still importing this toxin into the U.S.? Why don’t we have an asbestos ban? When will we protect our citizens from this tragedy?

“One more victim of asbestos to mourn,” writes Fernanda Giannasi and ABREA’s family from Brazil. “Asbestos doesn´t only kill anonymous citizens and simple workers who are always paying with their lives for the common wealth. Today the world pays tribute to Ed Lauter, a celebrity from Hollywood who was murdered cowardly by a silent and insidious carcinogen which is currently very close to all of us and sometimes an invisible, subtle dust in our roofs, walls, heating.”

As a mesothelioma widow, my heart goes out to the Lauter family. Our community includes countless Meso Warriors like Mr. Lauter...

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A Global Asbestos Battle Touches Yale

Today's post was shared by Linda Reinstein and comes from www.courant.com

Eternit plant in Casale Monferrato, Italy.

That Stephan Schmidheiny has played a huge role in environmental matters around the world over the last 37 years is not up for debate.

What is hotly contested about the Swiss industrialist-turned-philanthropist and author is whether he's rightly portrayed as a hero or a villain. And Yale University, which gave Schmidheiny an honorary doctorate in 1996, is caught in the middle — with that degree as a global political football.

In 1976, when he was 29 years old, Schmidheiny took over the Swiss Eternit Group, a business founded by his grandfather. The company had become one of Europe's largest asbestos firms, making cement products girded with the deadly mineral throughout the continent and in Brazil. Schmidheiny was 29 and a newly minted lawyer.

Within 10 years, the Italian arm of the business, with five factories, closed in bankruptcy.

After Eternit, Schmidheiny, born rich and growing richer through ties to Switzerland's best known companies, turned his attention to ecologically sustainable development. He created a charity and endowed it with more than $1 billion, launched a nonprofit foundation that operates in 17 Latin American countries and founded a global business group dedicated to private-sector environmentalism.
That was the Stephan Schmidheiny that Yale feted, and not just with an honorary degree. In 2000, Schmidheiny was a keynote speaker at the centennial of the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, which...

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Friday, October 18, 2013

Huge Differences by Region in Prescribing to Elderly, Study Finds

Researchers find that a higher proportion of seniors are prescribed antidepressants, dementia drugs and other medications in some parts of the country than others. Click to explore the researchers' findings.

Elderly Americans are prescribed medications in inexplicably different ways depending on where they live,according to a new report from Dartmouth researchers.

Th emostdepressed older patients—or at least the ones being medicated -- live in parts of Louisiana and Florida. There’s a cluster with dementia around Miami. And the seniors who have the most trouble sleeping? They live, perhaps unsurprisingly, in Manhattan.

The study by the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice examined geographic variations in the drugs elderly Medicare patients received in 2010. Researchers mapped where patients got medications they clearly needed and where they got drugs deemed risky for the elderly. They also looked at difference sin the use of so-called discretionary drugs, which they say are but of uncertain benefits.

The report’s findings underscore those of a ProPublica investigation in May, which found that some doctors who treat Medicare patients often prescribe drugs that are dangerous or inappropriate for certain patients. ProPublica also found that the federal officials who run Medicare have done little to scrutinize prescribing patterns in their drug program,known as Part D, or question doctors whose practices differ from their peers.
Officials...

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China Reports a Modest Acceleration in Growth

China keeps pace with job growth for now, Today's post was shared by The New York Times and comes from www.nytimes.com

China’s economy steadied in the third quarter, expanding by 7.8 percent compared with a year earlier, the government said Friday, indicating that the economy has pulled out of a jittery period of slowed growth thanks to revived investment, consumer spending and factory production.

Economists disagree over how robust that economic uptick is, with some arguing that a boost provided by a rise in bank credit could soon fade. But the third-quarter data are likely to give policy makers in Beijing more confidence that, for now, they can maintain adequate growth without resorting to major stimulus initiatives, several economists said.

“We’re seeing this recovery in consumer confidence,” said Stephen Green, head of Greater China research for Standard Chartered, and based in Hong Kong. “We’re seeing continued grinding out of the housing market recovery. So we’re relatively happy that we’ve got at least another couple of quarters of fairly plain sailing. Credit growth has decelerated a little bit, but not enough, we think, to slow us down now.”

The Chinese government has set an economic growth target of 7.5 percent for 2013. China’s leaders have said that the double-digit growth of the past must be abandoned so that resources and revenues can be directed toward urgently needed adjustments to the economy. A Communist Party leadership conference next month is likely to unveil broad plans for economic change....

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Labor puts Dems on notice: Don’t touch Medicare and Social Security benefits

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

With the crisis chatter in Washington now turning to speculation about the coming budget talks and the possibility of a “grand bargain” to replace the sequester, liberals and unions are getting increasingly nervous that Congressional Dems will give up entitlement benefits cuts in exchange for, well, whatever is on offer from Republicans, which isn’t at all clear.

In an interview, Damon Silvers, the policy director of the AFL-CIO, laid down a hard line, putting Dems on notice that any agreement that cuts entitlement benefits — even in a deal that includes GOP concessions on tax hikes — is a nonstarter. Silvers strongly suggested labor would withhold support in 2014 from any Dem lawmaker who supports such a deal.

“We are opposed to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid benefits cuts. Period,” Silvers told me. “There will be no cover for members of either party who vote for such a thing.”

Silvers said the AFL-CIO also opposes the entitlements cuts in the President’s budget, such as Chained CPI and a form of Medicare means testing. It’s unclear how, or whether, those will figure in what Dems bring to the table in the budget talks, which are mandated by the deal just reached to end the crisis.

“Chained CPI is like the vampire of American politics,” Silvers said. “It keeps being shot through the heart and it keeps reviving. The reason it keeps coming back is because it has...

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Thirty-one federal court facilities to be downsized

Today's post was shared by Legal Newsline and comes from legalnewsline.com

Judge Smith

Thirty-one federal court facilities will be downsized or closed as part of a nationwide program to reduce work space.

This week, the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts announced the program will claim more than $1.7 million in incentives in releasing underused offices back to the U.S. General Services Administration, which helps manage U.S. federal properties.

During the program’s first year, which ended Sept. 30, probation/pretrial offices accounted for four of the five largest cost-saving projects.

“It has been enormously successful,” said Judge D. Brooks Smith, who serves on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit and chairs the Judicial Conference’s Space and Facilities Committee.
“By offering courts a monetary incentive, we have given them an opportunity to focus on space reduction — and space reduction is priority No. 1 for the Space and Facilities Committee.”
The space reduction incentive program was approved by the U.S. Judicial Conference last September, as part of a long-term campaign by the judiciary to reduce space costs.

Last month, the conference expanded its space reduction goals and called on federal courts to reduce their overall space inventory target 3 percent by the end of fiscal year 2018.

According to the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, the initial participating projects and rent savings are expected to pay off all upfront costs, including the incentive...

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Shutdown’s science fallout could last for years

Today's post was shared by RWJF PublicHealth and comes from www.politico.com

The government may finally be on a path to reopening, but the shutdown’s effects will linger for scientists studying everything from climate change to cancer.

Antarctica-bound field researchers stuck in budget limbo over the past three weeks fret that decades of data on penguins and ice sheets will end up with a glaring gap, undercutting their documentation of global warming. Doctors operating federal-funded clinical studies on Alzheimer’s, cocaine addiction and heart disease worry they’ve lost the trust of patients.

Public health officials warn the country is still “flying blind” for the start of the flu season.

“Even if the government opens tomorrow, a significant amount of damage has been done,” said Mary Woolley, president of Research!America, a nonprofit advocating for science-minded agencies. “This isn’t about a few people who can’t go to the labs like they’re on vacation or something. The whole research enterprise depends on operating 24/7.”

Thinking more of the big picture, there’s also the little matter of keeping the best and brightest researchers working in, and for, the United States or seeing them flee to the private sector. It’s a realistic expectation after nearly three years of stop-and-go budget battles resulting in sequestration and now the cruel reality of laboratories ordered to keep the lights out.

(WATCH: Who won the shutdown? Top 5 quotes)
“Would you...

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The Many Ways the Government Shutdown Hurt Public Health and the Environment

Today's post was shared by RWJF PublicHealth and comes from switchboard.nrdc.org

After 16 long days, the government shutdown has finally come to an end. It is relief to know that hundreds of thousands public servants can return to work and that critical programs protecting our health and the environment will fully function once again. But any sense of reassurance is tempered by two simple facts: we never should have been here in the first place, and we could easily be in the same position again in January.

Political extremists pushed our nation to the brink out of sheer obstinance. Speaker Boehner could have ended this days ago by simply letting the full House vote on reopening the government. Instead, he declared himself a willing hostage to the radical wing of his party.

The reopening of the government and avoiding default are obviously good news. But the deal that allowed it to happen should be a signal to the environmental community to gird for the battles ahead.
The deal puts off the big fights for just a couple of months. House Republicans had a long list of anti-environmental provisions they threatened to add to the debt limit before the Affordable Care Act became their single-minded focus, and they could be part of the brinksmanship next time around....

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NFL Fans Weigh Impact Of Players' Head Injuries

Ed Zurga/AP

Fans cheer wildly with a Kansas City Chiefs player at an NFL game against the Oakland Raiders. For many fans, the risky side of football doesn't quell their love of the sport.

The NFL season is in high gear — a fact that pleases the roughly 64 percent of Americans who watch football. The season rolls on despite the now constant news about concussions in the sport.
The recent TV documentary League of Denial and the book by the same name claim that for years the NFL had denied and covered up evidence linking football and brain damage. Is the concussion conversation challenging this country's deep love for the game?
Apparently, not very much. Open a magazine, turn on a TV, and the new NFL ad campaign asks, "Why do you love football?"
"It doesn't matter if you're a coach or parent, player or fan. If you love football, now's your chance to tell your story. Go to togetherwemakefootball.com. If you're story's chosen, you could end up at the Super Bowl, just like I did," a boy says in one ad.
Whether intended or not, the ads have also helped blunt severe criticism facing the NFL in recent years. There was the massive concussion lawsuit pitting thousands of former players against the NFL — the league's potential liability was enormous. And League of Denial was poised to hit TV screens and bookstores, exposing more darkness.
But a week before the season started, the NFL settled the suit. And by the time League of Denial aired last week on PBS, many more football...

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Thursday, October 17, 2013

Outdoor air pollution: a leading environmental cause of cancer deaths

The specialized cancer agency of the WHO, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), announced that it has classified outdoor air pollution as carcinogenic to humans. The IARC evaluation concluded that there is sufficient evidence that exposure to outdoor air pollution causes lung cancer.

The specialized cancer agency of the World Health Organization, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), announced today that it has classified outdoor air pollution as carcinogenic to humans (Group 1).

After thoroughly reviewing the latest available scientific literature, the world’s leading experts convened by the IARC Monographs Programme concluded that there is sufficient evidence that exposure to outdoor air pollution causes lung cancer (Group 1). They also noted a positive association with an increased risk of bladder cancer.

Particulate matter, a major component of outdoor air pollution, was evaluated separately and was also
classified as carcinogenic to humans (Group 1).

The IARC evaluation showed an increasing risk of lung cancer with increasing levels of exposure to
particulate matter and air pollution. Although the composition of air pollution and levels of exposure can vary dramatically between locations, the conclusions of the Working Group apply to all regions of the world.

A major environmental health problem Air pollution is already known to increase risks for a wide range of diseases, such as respiratory and heart diseases. Studies indicate that in recent years exposure levels have increased significantly in some parts of the world, particularly in rapidly industrializing countries with large populations. The most recent data indicate that in 2010, 223 000 deaths from lung cancer worldwide resulted from air pollution.

The most widespread environmental carcinogen “The air we breathe has become polluted with a mixture of cancer-causing substances,” says Dr Kurt Straif, Head of the IARC Monographs Section. “We now know that outdoor air pollution is not only a major risk to health in general, but also a leading environmental cause of cancer deaths.”

The IARC Monographs Programme, dubbed the “encyclopaedia of carcinogens”, provides an authoritative source of scientific evidence on cancer-causing substances and exposures. In the past, the Programme evaluated many individual chemicals and specific mixtures that occur in outdoor air pollution. These included diesel engine exhaust, solvents, metals, and dusts. But this is the first time that experts have classified outdoor air pollution as a cause of cancer.

“Our task was to evaluate the air everyone breathes rather than focus on specific air pollutants,” explains Dr Dana Loomis, Deputy Head of the Monographs Section. “The results from the reviewed studies point in the same direction: the risk of developing lung cancer is significantly increased in people exposed to air pollution.”

This Is Your Brain on Toxins

The need for regulation and responsibility is the focus of this very interesting article that appears in The New York Times today. Today's post is shared from nytimes.org

“Lead helps to guard your health.”

That was the marketing line that the former National Lead Company used decades ago to sell lead-based household paints. Yet we now know that lead was poisoning millions of children and permanently damaging their brains. Tens of thousands of children died, and countless millions were left mentally impaired.

One boy, Sam, born in Milwaukee in 1990, “thrived as a baby,” according to his medical record. But then, as a toddler, he began to chew on lead paint or suck on fingers with lead dust, and his blood showed soaring lead levels.

Sam’s family moved homes, but it was no use. At age 3, he was hospitalized for five days because of lead poisoning, and in kindergarten his teachers noticed that he had speech problems. He struggled through school, and doctors concluded that he had “permanent and irreversible” deficiencies in brain function.

Sam’s story appears in “Lead Wars,” a book by Gerald Markowitz and David Rosner published this year that chronicles the monstrous irresponsibility of companies in the lead industry over the course of the 20th century. Eventually, over industry protests, came regulation and the removal of lead from gasoline. As a result, lead levels of American children have declined 90 percent...

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Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization New Infographic: Irrefutable Facts About Asbestos

Today's post was shared by Linda Reinstein and comes from www.asbestosdiseaseawareness.org

ADAO Infographic Irrefutable Facts About Asbestos

Posted on September 9, 2013
In 2011, ADAO launched our first infographic “Beware of the Silent Killer“, with the help of Piktochart we were able to create a compelling visual story. We were thrilled to take complex information about asbestos disease and transform it into a visual that everyone could understand. It’s 2013, and today we are launching our second infographic campaign: “Irrefutable Facts About Asbestos.” Please take a look and share this infographic with your social networks. Why do infographics work? Recently, Social Media Chimps gave six reasons:

Short Attention Span
Information Overload
Easy to Understand
Reading Retention
More Engaging
People Love Sharing Infographics.

What do you think? Do you remember the three irrefutable facts about asbestos? Of course you do. Mesothelioma Awareness Day is September 26. What better way to honor Mesothelioma Warriors than the share these asbestos facts?
To our Twitter followers we encourage you to share the Infographic and tweet out a fact.
FACT: #Asbestos is still legal and lethal in the US. http://bit.ly/18JsCQv #ADAO
FACT: #Asbestos is a known carcinogen. http://bit.ly/18JsCQv #ADAO
FACT: #Asbestos imports continue. http://bit.ly/18JsCQv #ADAO
FACT: USA Hasn’t Banned #Asbestos http://bit.ly/18JsCQv #ADAO
FACT: 30 Americans die every day from #asbestos-caused diseases http://bit.ly/18JsCQv #ADAO
FACT: 10,000 Americans die from...

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Goleta California: Workers' Comp Office Closing

The workers’ compensation office in Goleta — the only one in the county and open since 1999 — is being closed on November 30 with all of its clients and employees transferred to the Oxnard branch. The state’s Department of Industrial Relations (DIR) announced the decision last month.

Decrying the lack of public outreach, the Goleta City Council voted unanimously Tuesday to send a letter to the department opposing the closure and requesting it be postponed until people can weigh in. “It’s really going to be troublesome,” Mayor Roger Aceves said.

“We regret any inconvenience,” said DIR spokesperson Peter Melton. “Because [Oxnard is] less than an hour away, the decision was made to merge the offices.” Melton added that the closure is mainly due to the building’s monthly rent — more than $20,000 — and the increased space at the Oxnard office. He added that the Goleta branch — the only one closing right now — is one of the smallest out of the state’s 24, with only one judge and 1,254 hearing requests so far this year.

Aceves said he hopes the letter results in a public hearing or perhaps a compromise in which cases are held in Goleta a couple of days per week.

There is no word on whether other cities in the county plan on taking similar action. Employees at the Goleta office said they couldn’t comment on the closure.
Megan Compton, an attorney for the Santa...

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Saturday, October 19, 2013

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