regulation
sb admin | October 17, 2007California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has signed a state law that will require manufacturers to remove six types of phthalates from products intended for children under the age of three. The San Francisco Chronicle quotes the billâs author, Assemblywoman Fiona Ma:
âCalifornia continues to lead the nation in protecting children from dangerous chemicals and in safeguarding our environment," she said. "AB1108 sends a clear message to the Consumer Product Safety Commission that if the Bush administration won't act, states will.â
Environmental and breast cancer groups who backed the measure…
sb admin | October 16, 2007Just before the House passed legislation last month requiring OSHA to regulate diacetyl, OSHAâs press office went into high gear, announcing the agency was getting to work on just that issue. Two days before the vote, OSHA announced it was initiating rulemaking under section 6(b) of the Occupational Safety and Health Act. In other words, it was finally going to start the process of issuing a standard to protect workers exposed to hazardous flavor chemicals. As part of that process, it announced a stakeholder meeting, scheduled for October 17, 2007. (I'll be attending the meeting, and have…
sb admin | October 11, 2007By Liz BorkowskiÂ
Reports of toys and other products containing dangerous levels of lead continue to pour in, with Curious George dolls and lipstick being the latest items to come under scrutiny. Companies and health officials have to decide what to do about products currently on the market, and lawmakers are proposing ways to keep hazardous products off shelves in the first place.
Today, the LA Timesâ Marc Lifsher reports that the Center for Environmental Health found more than ten times the legal limit of lead in a Curious George doll and has filed a legal complaint against the Marvel…
sb admin | October 11, 2007Occupational exposure to manganese has been in the news lately, with law suits by welders who claim neurological disease caused by manganese exposure. Now two scientists at Swedenâs Karolinska Institute have written a paper in which they argue that current guidelines for safe levels of manganese in drinking water are based on a misinterpretation of a twenty-five year old study, and that newer evidence suggests that at least for infants and other vulnerable populations, the current guideline values are not adequately protective.
In a paper available online at Environmental Health Perspectives…
sb admin | October 9, 2007Are the political appointees who run OSHA delusional or merely mendacious? In her column in todayâs Washington Post, Cindy Skrzycki reviews the efforts by members of Congress to require OSHA to issue standards protecting workers from diacetyl, the artificial butter flavor chemical that causes irreversible lung disease. One statement jumped out:
"I would characterize us as proactive," said Jonathan Snare, acting solicitor at the Labor Department, which oversees OSHA.
The facts show this is simply false. The statement is so ludicrous that it should be an embarrassment even to the political…
sb admin | October 9, 2007What do three women made widows by three fatal Kentucky coal mining accidents have in common with two others left behind in the 2006 airline crash?
"I am a widow. I am a single parent. I'm an advocate for anyone suffering because they were robbed of their spouse due to ineptitude and/or negligence,"
said Sarah King Fortney, (here) whose 49 year-old husband C.W. Fortney was killed when Comair flight 5191 crashed after taking-off from the wrong runway at the Lexington, KY airport in August 2006. Mrs. Fortney was recently honored, along with four other widows, by the Kentucky Justice…
sb admin | October 7, 2007Carolynn Dejaynes had visited the tunnel at the Xcel Energy's Cabin Creek hydro-electric plant the day before it claimed her husband's life and that of four other employees of Robison-Prezioso Inc. (RPI). Mrs. Dejaynes says:
"It shouldn't have happened. There were things that could have been done to prevent it."
According to Kirk Mitchell of The Denver Post (here) the new widow has talked with some of the men who survived the tunnel fire and
"wants to know exactly what happened to her husband, in part because he took her to see the tunnel the day before the fire and told her it was…
sb admin | October 5, 2007MSHA announces '100 percent' plan
From The Onion? No. MSHA (seriously) just announced "a new initiative to complete 100 percent of mandated regular inspections of all coal mines in the country." Huh? A "new initiative" to do something that you are already required by statute to do?
Perhaps the Secretary of Labor Chao and Asst. Secretary Richard Stickler are a little irked at Ken Ward of the Charleston Gazette for publishing a number of stories in recent weeks, documenting that MSHA has failed to conduct its required inspections. Two of the stories (here and here) followed accidents…
sb admin | October 5, 2007Anthony Aguirre, 18, Donald Dejaynes, 43, Gary Foster, 48, Dupree Holt, 37 and James St. Peters, 52 were the five maintenance workers killed on Tuesday afternoon in a tunnel fire at the Xcel hydro-electric plant near Georgetown, Colorado. If you want any information about the fatal workplace incident, don't bother visiting OSHA's website; you'll find not a word about this workplace disaster.Â
I've been peeved (as have many others) for MSHA's failure to provide up-to-date and accurate information about mining fatalities and its accident investigation process. Should we not hold OSHA to…
sb admin | September 28, 2007While the House of Representatives was voting Wednesday to approve the Popcorn Workers Lung Disease Prevention Act (here), OSHA's Assistant Secretary Edwin Foulke had just mailed a letter rejecting a petition from a group of workersâ who'd asked for emergency protection from the respiratory hazards caused by butter-flavoring agents.  Mr. Foulkeâs response is not only tardy---it took them 14 months to write a 5-page letter---but its content is insulting.  âI assure you that OSHA takes the concerns you expressed very seriously," he writes. Oh, please. Your meager actions to protect…
sb admin | September 27, 2007By Kristen PerosinoÂ
Is FDA on the road to recovery? Will public confidence in the agency be restored?
In what is bound to be an interesting policy address (not to mention well-timed, as the recently passed FDA Amendments Act of 2007 awaits Bushâs signature), Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) is scheduled to present her vision of âThe Future of the FDAâ on Wednesday, October 3rd at George Washington University.
Sheâs quite an important figure for the agency. As Chair of the House Appropriations subcommittee that funds FDA, DeLauro is influential in determining resource allocations to FDA programs.Â…
sb admin | September 27, 2007Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) explaining his opposition to H.R. 2693, the Popcorn Workers Lung Disease Prevention Act, which would require OSHA to protect workers from breathing toxic chemicals used in artificial butter flavor:
"If there's something wrong with popcorn, how did Orville Redenbacher live so long?"
sb admin | September 27, 2007The recent recalls of dangerous toys and defective cribs have received a great deal of press attention, but closer analysis reveals that consumer product recalls are generally ineffective at getting most defective products out of consumersâ homes.
In many cases, the vast majority of the dangerous recalled items are never returned to the manufacturer. Confusing instructions, missing or late mailing labels, and store clerks who refuse to take returns are among the problems that consumers describe. Consumer advocates point to a problem with the system, which lets companies choose whether…
sb admin | September 26, 2007By David Michaels
Updated Below
By a vote of 260 to 154, the US House of Representatives has passed H.R. 2693, the Popcorn Workers Lung Disease Prevention Act. This was not a pure party line vote - over the objections of the White House and the Chamber of Congress, 47 Republicans voted with the majority, and only 8 Democrats opposed the resolution. The vote demonstrates the widespread recognition that OSHA has failed to protect workers and Congress needs to step in to force the agency to do its job.
Our thanks go out to Education and Labor Committee Chairman George Miller, Workforce…
sb admin | September 26, 2007By Liz Borkowski
Yesterday, the White House and the OSHA Fairness Coalition (which includes members like the International Food Distributors Association, National Association of Manufacturers, and U.S. Chamber of Commerce) wrote to members of the House of Representatives to express their strong opposition to H.R. 2693, the Popcorn Workers Lung Disease Prevention Act.
No one whoâs been following the Bush Administrationâs approach to regulation will be surprised to hear that the responses from the White House and business coalition are strikingly similar to one another, and to arguments used…
sb admin | September 25, 2007By David Michaels
Days before the House will vote on legislation to force OSHA to regulate diacetyl (the artificial butter flavor chemical that causes bronchiolitis obliterans), the agency has apparently decided that perhaps it is finally time to begin the rulemaking process for this substance. Yesterday, fourteen months after we petitioned OSHA for an emergency standard, the agency has called for a stakeholder meeting to discuss how it might address the problem.
Although OSHAâs press release claims that the agency is âinitiating rule-making,â if you read the small print, it is clear that…
sb admin | September 25, 2007By Liz BorkowskiÂ
As David Michaels reported yesterday, the Popcorn Workers Lung Disease Prevention Act will come up for a vote in the House some time this week. The legislation will force OSHA to issue a standard that will minimize workersâ exposure to diacetyl, the butter flavoring chemical thatâs been causing severe, irreversible lung disease in workers from food and flavoring plants.
Why hasnât OSHA acted to address diacetyl exposure, even though theyâve known about the problem for several years? It seems that these days, top regulatory-agency officials are more interested in a…
sb admin | September 24, 2007By David Michaels
Later this week, the House of Representatives will vote on H.R. 2693 -- The Popcorn Workers Lung Disease Prevention Act. Now is the moment to let your Member of Congress know how important it is for them to support the legislation.
Popcorn Workers Lung is a case study in regulatory failure. As we've written many times here, OSHA has ignored this deadly hazard for far too long. At least three workers have died and dozens more have developed irreversible lung disease as a result of exposure to diacetyl.
H.R. 2693 would give OSHA 90 days to issue an interim final standard that…
sb admin | September 24, 2007By David Michaels
Most media coverage of Fridayâs announcement by the Consumer Products Safety Commission and a crib manufacturer that one million cribs were being recalled missed the story behind the story. Stung by an avalanche of bad publicity on its failure to protect children from toys with lead paint or dangerous magnets, the CPSC appeared to be getting ahead of the problem, taking action after the death of (only) two infants.
In fact, the CPSC had known about the risk of infant suffocation posed by these cribs for many months, and the Chicago Tribune had been investigating the…
sb admin | September 20, 2007Like microwave-popcorn manufacturers and toy companies, members of the trade group Grocery Manufacturers of America have recognized that itâs not a good thing to have consumers worried about whether their favorite products might kill them. So, theyâre asking the FDA to do more to ensure the safety of foods and beverages, and have come out with a specific proposal âto improve the safety of our food imports.â (Domestic foods evidently get a pass for now, despite the E. coli problem.)
As David Michaels pointed out earlier this week, this sudden affinity for regulation isnât just about shoring up…