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In a press tele-conference last week, OSHA chief Dr. David Michaels once again took the opportunity to promote the much-ballyhooed and controversial Injury and Illness Prevention Plan (I2P2). “Certainly, we encourage employers to adopt and embrace I2P2,” he said. “In the VPP (Voluntary Protection Program) thousand of companies have adopted the principles of I2P2. So we know it works."

With a five percent increase in attendance, this year’s National Safety Council NSC Congress & Expo had the highest attendance yet.

The U.S. Department of Labor’s Mine Safety and Health Administration’s inspectors issued 213 citations, 23 orders and one safeguard during special impact inspections conducted at nine coal mines and five metal/nonmetal mines last month.

A glove may protect against a specific chemical, but it may not protect the wearer from another. If a glove protects the wearer, it will not protect the wearer forever, as the glove material will deteriorate. Therefore, the following must be considered when choosing which gloves to be worn to protect against chemical exposures.

OSHA has cited a Long Island health care facility for exposing its workers to bloodborne pathogens from a variety of sources. The Avalon Gardens Rehabilitation & Health Care Center Inc. in Smithtown earned 11 serious violations of workplace health and safety standards, with $41,000 in proposed penalties, following an inspection that was prompted by a complaint.

The intricate properties of the fingertips have been mimicked and recreated using semiconductor devices in what researchers hope will lead to the development of advanced surgical gloves. The devices, shown to be capable of responding with high precision to the stresses and strains associated with touch and finger movement, are a step towards the creation of surgical gloves for use in medical procedures such as local ablations and ultrasound scans.

Next to our eyes, our hands are probably the most important part of our body when it comes to doing our work. They’re involved in almost everything we do. Yet many of the things we do with our hands are done without any deliberate thought.

Over the past couple of weeks I have criticized the mad rush of snake oil sales men from BBS to the new –found goldmine of one form or another of “culture-based” safety.  I like to alternate my posts from the critical, to the (hopefully) helpful.  Much ado is made about the holy grail of injury prevention, but scant little has been offered around sustaining change.

Four Arkansas companies have been cited by OSHA as a result of a crane collapse in March that killed one worker and injured eight others. OSHA cited Precision Surveillance Corp., Bigge Crane and Rigging Co., Siemens Power Generation Inc. and Entergy Operations Inc. for 26 safety violations after one Precision Surveillance worker was fatally injured when a crane collapsed at the Arkansas Nuclear One Power Plant.

The U.S. Department of Labor’s Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) has put three mining operations on notice of a pattern of violations of mandatory health or safety standards under Section 104(e) of the Federal Mine Safety and Health Act of 1977.