In this case, it does much more than merely hurt. “This case” refers to last Thursday’s (October 24, 2013) rather extraordinary admission by OSHA chief Dr. David Michaels that hundreds of OSHA’s permissible exposures limits (PELs) are far out of date, basically useless, and in fact dangerous.
In the United States, it is estimated that chemicals are the cause of more than 190,000 illnesses and 50,000 deaths suffered annually by workers, according to research by NIOSH and the National Cancer Institute and cited in 2006 by the California Policy Research Center. The Center says, “These numbers are likely an underestimate due to long latency periods between chemical exposures and the onset of disease, unrecognized relationships between illnesses and chemicals, and other factors.”