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Updates on the Texas fertilizer plant explosion and the Bangladesh factory building collapse, a preview of AIHce 2013 and an OSHA change in who may accompany its inspectors on “walkarounds” were all featured news on ISHN.com this week:

AIHA does a solid job of appealing to and catering to the needs of young professionals. This year’s CareerAdvantage in Montrealfeatures sessions designed to help those in the occupational and environmental health and safety (OEHS) field advance their current careers and find and maintain positions in the industry. 

Mobile apps are quickly becoming a mandatory staple of meetings and conventions of all sorts. The “AIHce 2013 Mobile App” allows attendees to create and manage their schedule, view detailed session and exhibitor listings, and stay informed about the latest meeting happenings. All this from the convenience of a mobile device.

AIHA calls its members “occupational and environmental health and safety professionals.” That about covers it all. The organization says “members play a crucial role on the front line of worker health and safety every day.” Note the inclusion of safety.

“We suffer in this age from an indifference toward criminality and a callousness to catastrophe when it comes to poor and working people.” That quote comes from retired Princeton professor Dr. Cornel West in a recent interview in the London-based newspaper The Guardian. Dr. West has been called the firebrand of American academia for almost 30 years.

I was in McPherson, Kansas speaking at the National Cooperative Refinery Association. I arrived to find a great training room they were using for their meetings. They had it set up perfectly to create the best learning environment possible. I will share with you a few things you can do to make your meetings more effective from a logistical viewpoint.

Some terrible things occurred during the course of three short days last month. First of all, a couple of troubled young brothers decided to explode two homemade bombs near the finish line at the Boston Marathon, killing three people and critically injuring more than 100 others. Then two days later, there was a tremendous explosion at a fertilizer plant located in the small town of West, TX, injuring more than 250 people and killing at least 15 people, many of them first responders.

There are certain subjects and/or standards in occupational safety and health that are “untouchable.” They should be aired out, discussed, addressed. But among regulators and lawmakers, particularly in Washington, they are “toxic.” Politics is not the only culprit here. The U.S. has certain cultural “boundaries” surrounding some issues that make them less accessible to discussion and plans than say in Europe.

If you suffer from joint pain, exercise may seem like the last thing you want to do, or need to do. But the right exercises performed properly can be a long-lasting way to subdue ankle, knee, hip, or shoulder pain. For some people, the right exercise routine can even help delay or sidestep surgery.

If you've ever slipped on an oily patch of floor or tripped over a loose piece of carpeting you know how easy it can be to take a fall. And if you did fall, you would join the more than 42,000 people who get injured each year in work-related falls. That's about seventeen percent of the "time-loss injuries" across Canada as well as a lot of economic loss, pain and suffering, and sometimes even death. 

More than 270,000 pedestrians lose their lives on roads each year, the United Nations health agency said today, calling on governments to improve traffic safety. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), pedestrian casualties account for 22 per cent of the total 1.24 million road traffic deaths. To draw attention to the needs of pedestrians and generate action to protect them, WHO organized the Second UN Global Road Safety Week, which kicks off on 6 May with events in 70 countries.

If you’re having the occasional twinge of joint pain when you go for a walk or climb stairs, or you’re worried about arthritis because a parent had it, one step toward prevention is to check your weight. There are two ways that being overweight raises your risk for developing osteoarthritis (the most common joint disorder, which is due to wear and tear on a joint).