A nationwide fall prevention initiative, how earnings expectations can affect safety and how flying safety can be improved through better weather reports were among the top stories featured on ISHN.com this week.

Appalachian Safety Summit

Providing International Expertise on Your Doorstep

Get ready to spend two days with us, learning from the top authorities on behavioral safety. In addition to being informative, our conference will give you the opportunity to network with other professionals in your field.

Six questions for labor’s top workplace safety expert

What can you tell us so far about the Trump administration’s record on worker safety? Already we’ve seen the Trump administration repeal two important workplace safety rules. They’ve proposed the elimination of funding for worker safety and health training programs. They’ve proposed the elimination of the Chemical Safety Board. And they’ve proposed slashing the job safety research budget.

CSB: Lack of PSM caused deadly 2016 Airgas explosion

The August 28, 2016, nitrous oxide explosion at the Airgas manufacturing facility in Cantonment, Florida was caused by effective process safety management system (PSM), according to the U.S. Chemical Safety Board’s (CSB) final report on the incident, which killed the only Airgas employee working at the facility that day and heavily damaged the plant. The problem: a majority of PSM’s specialized rules are not required for nitrous oxide facilities.

2017 National Safety Stand-Down to Prevent Falls in Construction up ahead

With less than three weeks to go before its National Safety Stand Down to Prevent Falls in Construction, the “Events” section on the portion of the OSHA website devoted to the stand down is largely empty. The following states show no Stand-Down activities listed:

Crash survivors’ stories will highlight distracted driving forum

“Beating distracted driving will take a wholesale change in our driving culture,” says National Transportation Safety Board, (NTSB) Acting Chairman Robert Sumwalt.

Study: Managers may compromise safety due to earnings expectations

Managers of U.S. companies facing market pressures to meet earnings expectations may risk damaging the health and safety of workers to please investors according to recent research from the Naveen Jindal School of Management at UT Dallas.

Berkeley tax is reducing sugary drink sales

But are people drinking less?

Sales of sugary drinks in Berkeley, California have decreased sharply since the city levied a tax on sweetened beverages a year ago, according to a new study published Tuesday in the journal PLOS Medicine.

A Confined Space blog post

Weekly Toll: Death in the American Workplace

Jordan Barab

Another depressing installment of the Weekly Toll. Note that there are 39 fatalities listed here, going back, more or less, for about a week. There are an average of 13 workers killed every day on the job in the United States, which means the list below only covers about one-quarter of the workers actually killed on the job over the last week. 
 

KFC to change antibiotic policies for its chickens

Drugs in food supply lead to drug-resistant infection epidemic in humans

Efforts to manage a national health crisis will be getting a little help from an unlikely source – a fast food restaurant chain. Kentucky Fried Chicken—the largest chicken-on-the-bone quick service restaurant in the U.S.—has committed to phasing out chicken raised with antibiotics important to human medicine in its U.S. stores by the end of 2018.

How better use of weather reports can make flying safer

Citing how important weather reports by pilots are to flight safety, the National Transportation Safety Board, (NTSB) in a special investigation report, called for changes in training and procedures for pilots, air traffic controllers and others within the aviation community to enhance the effectiveness of the entire pilot weather reporting system with the intent to reduce pilots’ inadvertent encounters with hazardous weather and to prevent weather-related accidents.