Articles Tagged with ''hazardous materials''

I get a lot of health and safety-related news alerts emailed to be every day. Some days are worse than others. Here is a sample from yesterday. (With a little commentary.) Someone asked me this morning how writing this blog doesn’t throw me into depression. To some extent it’s an outlet, keeping me from kicking the dogs and throwing things at TV. But then there are days like today when it all seems like too much.

In what the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) is calling “a major victory for public health,” the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) voted 3-2 last week, to ban several harmful phthalate chemicals from plastic used in children’s toys and child care articles. Phthalates are commonly used as a plastic softener in children’s toys and child care articles, such as teething rings.

SiteHawk, the global leader in chemical data management and compliance solutions announced the release of the QuickSCAN mobile app today. QuickSCAN integrates mobile technology with chemical data to connect users to SDSs from mobile devices with web access.

Scientists have known for decades that drinking water contaminated by fertilizer nitrates can pose a threat to infants by undermining the ability of their blood to carry oxygen. The condition, known as ‘blue baby syndrome,” led federal regulators to impose an environmental standard of no more than 10 parts per million, or ppm, for nitrates in public water supplies.

The U.S. Chemical Safety Board (CSB) has released an eight minute safety video entitled “Fire in Baton Rouge” detailing the agency’s Key Lessons stemming from the 2016 fire at the ExxonMobil Refinery that seriously injured four workers. The video includes a new four minute animation explaining the events leading up to the incident.

The Tennessee Occupational Safety and Health Administration (TOSH) is investigating last week’s explosion at an Eastman Chemical in Kingsport, Tennessee that released potentially toxic chemicals into the air.

The unique needs of first responders and related workers must not be forgotten as the nation combats the opioid epidemic. This was the core message of comments AIHA recently submitted to the President's Commission on Combating Drug Addiction and the Opioid Crisis. Workers who may be exposed include first responders such as law enforcement, DEA agents, and EMTs, as well as crime lab analysts and others.

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) – the federal agency charged with developing new knowledge in the field of occupational safety and health and helping to transfer that knowledge into practice – is currently active in a number of areas, including: