regulation
sb admin | June 29, 2010Liz Borkowski writes: Mark Pendergrast wrote yesterday about how politics plays into the work of the EIS, and it's something that I kept noticing as I read Inside the Outbreaks. As he points out, my post last week highlighted the solution to the Reye's Syndrome puzzle - which was solved by Karen Starko, who's also one of the Book Club bloggers! - but didn't get into the larger issue: there can be a big difference between solving the puzzle and solving the problem. In yesterday's post, Mark writes:
Although Karen's and subsequent CDC studies clearly demonstrated that giving children aspirin…
cmonforton | June 23, 2010When President Obama nominated Prof. Cass Sunstein to head the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) many of us in the public health community were worried. He was, afterall, an academic who authored a paper entitled, "Is OSHA unconstitutional?" and another "Is the Clean Air Act unconstitutional?" Our colleagues at the Center for Progressive Reform have tried their best to keep an eye on happenings at OIRA under this regulatory czar's leadership. This includes excellent analysis by CPR's James Goodwin on OIRA's meddling in EPA's policy on coal ash waste.
Here are two new…
lborkowski | June 11, 2010James Surowiecki's latest New Yorker piece tackles the problem of weakened federal agencies failing to get tough on companies that need it. He notes that leading up to the BP Deepwater Horizon Disaster, Minerals Management Service officials "had let oil companies shortchange the government on oil-lease payments, accepted gifts from industry representatives, and, in some cases, literally slept with the people they were regulating." And he gives other examples:
Mining regulators allowed operators like Massey Energy to flout safety rules. Financial regulators let A.I.G. write more than half a…
cmonforton | June 9, 2010As Coal Tattoo reports in "MSHA lost a major 'pattern of violation' case against Massey," the federal mine safety agency was foiled in its effort to place Massey Energy's Tiller No.1 mine on a pattern of violations. This particular underground coal mine is located in Tazewell, Virginia and had dozens of S&S citations for violating mandatory health and safety standards. S&S violations are NOT nit-picky offenses that you'd shrug your shoulders at---they are serious infractions with a reasonable likelihood that a worker could suffer a serious injury, even death. MSHA inspectors had…
dgmacarthur | May 20, 2010The brief Golden Age of direct-to-consumer genetic testing - in which people could freely gain access to their own genetic information without a doctor's permission - may be about to draw to a close. In a dramatic week, announcements of investigations into direct-to-consumer genetic testing companies by both the FDA and the US Congress have sent the personal genomics industry into a spin, and it is still impossible to say exactly which way it will be pointing once the confusion passes.
I've been frustratingly unable to find the time to cover the developments as they happened due to other…
cmonforton | May 15, 2010As I noted in "Perplexed by OSHA's reg agenda," I've made a habit of commenting on the content of the Dept of Labor's semi-annual regulatory agenda [see links below]. I'll be the first to admit that our system for protecting workers from well-known hazards with new regulations is onerous and anything but nimble. It needs an overhaul. The obstacles, roadblacks and challenges plague OSHA, but these administrative and burden-of-proof hurdles DO NOT apply to MSHA. Here are just two examples of what I mean:
MSHA merely has to demonstrate that its decision is not arbitrary and capricious; a…
cmonforton | May 15, 2010Beginning in December 2006, I've written five blog post commenting on the content of the Department of Labor's (DOL) regulatory agenda for worker health and safety rulemakings. Most of my posts [see links below] have criticized the Labor Secretary and senior OSHA and MSHA staff for failing to offer a bold vision for progressive worker protections. Now that the Obama & Solis team have been on board for more than a year, I'm not willing to cut them any slack for being newbies. Regrettably, as with the Bush/Chao agendas, my posts today will question rather than compliment the OSHA team (…
revere | April 27, 2010Once, long ago, I used to be in a radiology department in a famous hospital. I liked radiology quite a bit and even before becoming a doctor I worked in them. Later I did research on the kinds of errors radiologists make when they read x-rays. One of the errors that was extremely well known even 40 plus years ago (although that didn't prevent it from being made with dismaying consistency up to and including today) was something called "satisfaction of search error." In essence, it meant that once one abnormality was found on an x-ray, there was an increased chance of missing a second,…
revere | April 17, 2010It would be surprising if failure to fund local public health and neutering regulation would result in a decrease in foodborne illness. Alas, there is nothing surprising about CDC's latest report on incidence of foodborne illness in the US. They put the best face on it they could, pointing to a decrease in E. coli O157H7 cases, but they've seen that kind of progress in E. coli before only to slip back.
In reality we aren't sure how much food poisoning occurs each year. Most of it is self-limited and never comes to the attention of medical or public health authorities. It never gets counted.…
revere | April 3, 2010Better late than never. When the Bush administration proposed sweeping airport quarantine rules in 2005, even those of us most concerned about avian influenza thought it was a fruitless policy on scientific grounds, not to mention issues of civili liberties and economics. The airlines hated it, too:
The regulations, proposed in 2005 during the Bush administration amid fears of avian flu, would have given the federal government additional powers to detain sick airline passengers and those exposed to certain diseases. They also would have expanded requirements for airlines to report ill…
revere | March 12, 2010When last we visited the US food safety system during the Bush administration it was busy serving up peanut butter with a side of Salmonella. That one caused over 4 thousand product recalls, 700 Salmonella cases and at least 9 deaths. Now it's Salmonella serovar Tennessee in hydrolyzed vegetable protein (HVP), a common flavor enhancer used in all sorts of food products, including, according to the FDA, soups, sauces, chilis, stews, hot dogs, gravies, seasoned snack foods, dips and dressings. An important difference -- so far -- is that there are no illnesses traced to the contaminated…
revere | October 14, 2009I don't fly as much as I used to but I still fly too often for my likes and when the cart comes around for the free beverages it's either orange juice "with no ice" or a bloody mary mix "with no ice." I rarely drink water, but if I did, I would never drink the water out of a pitcher, as offered to me a couple of weeks ago on Air Canada. From a bottle, maybe, but since bottled water isn't as well regulated as tap water, I usually don't partake. I know a fair amount about public drinking water, but one day I was seated on a plane next to somebody who knew a lot about airplanes and he said he'd…
sb admin | September 25, 2009by Ken Ward, Jr., cross-posted from Sustained Outrage: a Gazette Watchdog Blog
During a public hearing last night in Georgia, the federal Chemical Safety Board tried to answer critics who complained the board had backed off its strong recommendation that the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) write new rules to protect workers nationwide from the dangers of explosive dust. In approving a final report on the disastrous explosion that killed 14 workers at and Imperial Sugar refinery, board members unanimously added this language as a recommendation to OSHA:
Proceed…
sb admin | September 24, 2009WTOC in Savannah, GA is reporting that Georgia's Senators, Republicans Johnny Isakson and Saxby Chambliss, are calling on OSHA to issue a regulation to protect workers from the dangers related to combustible dust. WTOC says that the Senators were brief today by officials of the Chemical Safety Board on the causes of the Feb. 7, 2008, explosion at the Imperial Sugar refinery that killed 14 people and left others with serious burns and injuries.
Senator Isakson said:
"I believe we should embrace the findings of the Chemical Safety Board, including the recommendation that OSHA…
sb admin | September 24, 2009by Ken Ward, Jr., cross-posted from Sustained Outrage: a Gazette Watchdog Blog
The U.S. Chemical Safety Board is scheduled to release the findings of its investigation into the terrible explosion that killed 14 workers at a Georgia sugar refinery in February 2008.
Itâs another big test for the CSB, which has been under fire recently. Organized labor harshly criticized the board for backing off a strong recommendation on the need for OSHA and EPA to write new rules to prevent accidents involving highly reactive chemicals. The board refused to support its own staffâs call for a safety…
sb admin | September 23, 2009We long been hearing moans and groans from many in the business community about how OSHA rules stiffle the economy, or worse, from employers who insist that following OSHA rules will cost them jobs.  The sad truth is the exact opposite: failing to meet basic health and safety standards can shutter the doors of your business.  Just look at what was announced by ConAgra last week about their Slim Jim plant near Garner, NC, the site of massive explosion in June that killed three workers.  They are laying-off more than 300 workers. In the words of the USW's Jim Frederick:
"The…
sb admin | September 21, 2009Members of Congress George Miller (D-CA), Lynn Woolsey (D-CA) and Corrine Brown (D-FL)  sent a letter to acting OSHA chief Jordan Barab urging the agency to expand its process safety management standard (PSM) to address reactive chemicals. Reactives are highly unstable that can violently generate heat, energy and/or toxic gases when they come into contact with air, water or other substances.   The letter reminds Mr. Barab that members of Congress wrote to his predecessor, Asst. Secretary Foulke, in January 2008 asking him to begin the rulemaking process to address the hazards…
razib | September 18, 2009The Nightmare Of Regulatory Reform:
...the SEC and the CFTC, two agencies that have fought hard to stay apart while the products they regulate grow more and more intertwined. Both Republicans and Democrats agree the two should become one, but former House Financial Services Committee chairman Mike Oxley says the chances of that happening are about as good as him beating Tiger Woods.
This is obviously public choice theory at work. But more generally an inspection of history shows that institutions tend to go through phases, as if they have a life history like organisms. The Chinese dynastic…
sb admin | September 17, 2009Today, Andrew Schneider at Cold Truth tells us that way back in April, acting Surgeon General Steven Galson issued a long-awaited statement about the dangers of asbestos, a statement urged for years by asbestos-disease victims, their families and public health advocates.  Galson's action was so stealth (intentionally, perhaps?) that the individuals who had been calling for it were never even notified--Not the Senators who marshalled a  Senate Resolution urging a Surgeon General's warning or the Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization (ADAO) who supported the congressional…
sb admin | September 16, 2009The U.S. Chemical Safety Board (CSB) released its report and recommendations yesterday on the December 19, 2007 explosion at the T2 laboratory in Jacksonville, Florida. The violent explosion took the lives of four individuals: Charles Budds Bolchoz, 48, Karey Renard Henry, 35, Parish Lamar Ashley36, and Robert Scott Gallagher, 49. The CSB compared to blast to one from 1,400 pounds of TNT, and one "capable of flinging a one-ton chunk of the steel reactor onto a set of railroad tracks, then into a building 400 feet from where it had stood."  At the time of the disaster, the company…