Celeste Monforton, DrPH, MPH
of Lecturer, Texas State University & Professorial Lecturer Milken Institute School of Public Health.
cmonforton
Posts by this author
April 8, 2015
Imagine a workplace in your town where one of every three employees had the same work-related illness. Better yet, imagine that it was one in three employees in your own workplace. That'd be pretty shocking, right?
Well, that's what the CDC’s National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (…
April 6, 2015
Jeffrey Shannon, 49 suffered fatal traumatic injuries on Monday, March 30, 2015 while working at Sunoco’s Marcus Hook Industrial Complex in Delaware County, PA. 6ABC reports:
”It happened around 2:15 p.m. at Blue Ball Avenue and Post Road on the grounds of the refinery.”
NPR’s State Impact…
April 2, 2015
April 5, 2015 will mark the fifth anniversary of the coal dust explosion that killed 29 miners at Massey Energy's Upper Big Branch mine (UBB). It was the worst disaster in 40 years in the US coal industry.
Since then, some things have changed in coal mine safety. The Mine Safety and Health…
April 1, 2015
Marathon Petroleum (MPC) has some glitzy publications explaining its philosophy of “corporate citizenship.” The documents describe the company's "deep involvement in the communities where we are privileged to do business." They cover topics such as "Our People," "Health & Safety," and "…
March 26, 2015
I’ll be looking to the Charleston Gazette’s Ken Ward Jr. to keep me apprised of the upcoming trial of former Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship. The trial is scheduled to begin on April 20. That's just a few weeks after the 5th anniversary (April 5) of the massive coal dust explosion that killed 29…
March 24, 2015
James “Rusty Shake-Down” Harrison, 35, suffered fatal traumatic injuries on Wednesday, March 11, 2015 while working at a drilling operation in southeastern, New Mexico. KCBD reports:
The incident happened around 3:30 p.m.
According to the Lea County Sheriff's Office “workers were loading oil field…
March 20, 2015
Jose Alfredo Isagirrez-Mejia work-related death could have been prevented. That’s how I see the findings of Federal OSHA in the agency’s citations against his employer, Structural Prestressed Industries.
The 29-year-old was working in July 2014 at one of the company’s construction sites in Fort…
March 19, 2015
Employees of the fast-food giant McDonald’s recently filed 28 complaints with federal OSHA about health and safety problems at their workplaces. The complaints involved McDonald’s locations in 19 cities, including Philadelphia, New Orleans, and Kansas City. The complaints were announced on Monday…
March 12, 2015
Cronyism, retaliation, and abuse of power are just a few of the many unsavory terms and themes on full display at last week’s congressional hearing about the US Chemical Safety Board (CSB). It was the second time in less than 10 months that CSB chairman Rafael Moure-Eraso, PhD and board members…
March 11, 2015
Alejandro Anguiana, 41, suffered fatal traumatic injuries on Friday, March 6, 2015 while working at Markman Peat Corp. in Kingsbury, Indiana. ABC57 reports:
Mr. Anguiana was a payload/forklift operator. A co-worker found Mr. Anguiana trapped in a running piece of machinery. EMS was called to the…
March 5, 2015
A quick way to lose someone in a conversation is to mention workers' comp. No doubt I’ve already lost readers because my headline included the phrase. But you’ll think differently about the topic if you take a look at this week’s reporting by ProPublica and National Public Radio. Read just the…
March 4, 2015
It’s a rare thing on Capitol Hill when a member of the Administration is on the hot seat from both sides of the aisle. But that’s what happened on Tuesday when President Obama’s regulatory czar, Howard Shelanski, JD, PhD, testified at a joint hearing of two subcommittees of the House Committee on…
March 2, 2015
The European Trade Union Institute (ETUI) published a book last month featuring a collection of 50 workplace safety and health posters. They were designed for or developed by agencies and advocates between 1925 and 2004.
The book's author, Alfredo Menendez-Navarro, MD PhD, organized the selections…
February 27, 2015
John P. Stoll, 58, suffered fatal traumatic injuries on Friday, February 20, 2015 while working at a construction site in the 1100 block of John Nolen Dr. in Madison, Wisconsin. Channel3000.com reports:
EMS was called to the scene at 7:38 am to respond to “an entrapment”
Firefighters said a crew…
February 26, 2015
This week the differences between OSHA’s and MSHA’s websites were oh so obvious. The Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) released a new on-line tool to allow users to compare a mining operation’s violations of selected safety standards to the national average. For years, mine-specific…
February 25, 2015
Higher income is linked to longer life expectancy, less activity limitation due to chronic illnesses, and fewer adults and children with reported fair or poor health. While discussions at the federal level on raising the minimum wage are going nowhere, state and local health commissioners are…
February 19, 2015
Norberto Romero, 49, suffered fatal traumatic injuries on Monday, February 16, 2015 while working at Thomas Concrete on Canton Road in Marrietta, GA. The Examiner reports
The incident occurred at about 3:05 pm “when someone called 911 to report that someone was trapped inside a concrete silo”…
February 16, 2015
Our local grocery store chain, H.E.B., sells packaged poultry under the private label “Natural Chicken.” It’s meant to appeal to customers who want to know that the chicken they intend to eat was treated more humanely than your typical chicken. The package label on H.E.B.’s Natural Chicken says:…
February 12, 2015
Last month, my circa 1980 hand-held hair dryer finally gave out. It was a Christmas present during my first year in college. The motor on the cream-colored Conair didn’t exactly fail, but I had to jiggle the electrical cord in just the right way or it wouldn’t turn on. I bought a new one, and my…
February 9, 2015
Marvis L. Myers, 31, suffered fatal traumatic injuries on Friday, February 6, 2015 while working for the City of Columbia, SC. WISTV reports:
The incident occurred at a construction site on Pulaski Street near College Street.
The victim was underground “working on pipe repairs when a cave-in…
February 6, 2015
The story was about US immigration policy, but my-oh-my what it said about working conditions in poultry processing plants.
NPR’s Jim Zarroli reported from Georgia on the impact on businesses of the state’s 2011 law targeting undocumented immigrants. The president of Fieldale Farms, a poultry…
February 5, 2015
Workplace safety is one of the core issues of concern for the thousands of refinery workers who went on strike February 1 at plants in Texas, California, Washington, and Kentucky. The workers are members of the United Steelworkers (USW), and say their employers--- LyondellBasell, Marathon Oil, and…
January 27, 2015
Jason Strycharz, 40 suffered fatal traumatic injuries on Monday, January 23, 2015 while working at Primary Steel, LLC in Middletown, CT. AP reports:
The incident occurred around 9 am.
The fire marshal Albert Santostefano says the worker was struck by a piece of steel as it was swinging on a crane…
January 22, 2015
The AP headline read: “Regulators: Coal dust samples compliant with new rule.” The accompanying story was based on a news release issued by the Mine Safety and Health Administration on January 15. News outlets throughout US coal mining regions picked up the AP story. It said this:
Federal…
January 16, 2015
Richard Johnson, 31 suffered fatal traumatic injuries on Monday, January 12, 2015 while working at Southwest Fabrication’s facility in Phoenix, AZ
ABC15 reports:
It was the worker’s last shift at the company (he was moving on to a new job.)[His aunt alerted me that this report is incorrect.]
“His…
January 15, 2015
One of the country’s biggest poultry processing companies provides an in-house nursing station to treat work-related injuries, but the clinic may be in violation of state licensing standards. In a letter to Wayne Farms’ plant in Jack, Alabama, OSHA indicates that practices and policies of the…
January 9, 2015
This week’s MMWR includes a report on the experience of volunteer firefighters, police and other personnel who responded to a November 2012 train derailment in Paulsboro, NJ. The Contrail train twisted off a movable bridge and three tank cars containing vinyl chloride landed in Mantua Creek. About…
January 8, 2015
Timothy Todd Winding, 50, suffered fatal traumatic injuries on Tuesday, December 30 while working at Ford Motor Company’s Kansas City assembly plant located in Claycomo, MO. Fox4KC reports:
He was part of a crew of contractors who were working to retool the plant for a new line of Ford trucks.…
January 7, 2015
Standing in her wedding gown, Courtney Davis held this sign:
"Message2Congress: If you had banned asbestos, maybe my dad would have been here to give me away."
Her father, Larry W. Davis, 66, died in July 2012 of pleural mesothelioma---a cancer caused by asbestos exposure.
Stephanie Harper was a…
January 5, 2015
Elbert C. Woods’ work-related death could have been prevented. That’s how I see the findings of Federal OSHA in the agency’s citations against his employer, Cleveland Track Material. The 45-year-old was working in August 2014 at the company’s Cleveland plant when he was pulled into machinery. I…