Today's Safety News

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Having a pet might lower your risk of heart disease, according to a new American Heart Association scientific statement. The statement is published online in the association’s journal Circulation. “Pet ownership, particularly dog ownership, is probably associated with a decreased risk of heart disease” said Glenn N. Levine, M.D., professor at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, and chair of the committee that wrote the statement after reviewing previous studies of the influence of pets.

In a letter sent to the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) last week, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn) blasted the agency for failing to complete its review of OSHA’s proposed crystalline silica standard and other regulatory items within the legally mandated time frame.

The American Public Health Association (APHA) says it supports standards proposed recently by the Environmental Protection Agency that would set the first-ever federal limits on toxic pollutants in wastewater discharged from coal-fired power plants.

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) today unveiled an ambitious new plan aimed at eliminating alcohol-impaired driving crashes. The 19 recommendations contained in the plan call for stronger laws, swifter enforcement and expanded use of technology.

For reasons that have not been disclosed, the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health (Cal/OSHA) has sharply reduced fines levied recently against Disneyland Resorts for health and safety violations at Disneyland.

The U.S. Chemical Safety Board (CSB) has established a Facebook page devoted to the April 17 West, Texas fertilizer plant explosion – and although a large photo of the memorial for the victims is prominent on the page, the ongoing FB conversation is mostly forward-looking.

OSHA has cited Phoenix Industrial Cleaning for 28 serious safety violations following the death of a worker who fell from ladder inside of a storage tank, apparently after being overcome by methylene chloride vapors at a chemical manufacturing facility in Wheeling, Ill. on Nov. 29, 2012.

The death toll in that collapsed Bangladesh factory building has reached 1, 127 people – making it the world’s worst industrial disaster since the 1984 Bhopal gas leak in India, which claimed an estimated 3,787 lives.

Union officials or community organizers will be allowed on “walkaround” OSHA inspections at non-union workplaces, under a new interpretation of regulations by the agency in a recent interpretation letter. The revision comes in response to a letter from Steve Sallman, Health and Safety Specialist for the United Steel, Paper and Forestry, Rubber, Manufacturing, Energy, Allied Industrial and Service Workers International Union.

The Texas Rangers and the McLennan County Sheriff's Department Officials are helping to conduct a criminal investigation into the April 17 explosion in West, Texas that killed 14 people and demolished hundreds of homes.