Today's Safety News

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Winter weather creates a variety of hazards that can significantly impact everyday tasks and work activities. These hazards include slippery roads/surfaces, strong winds and environmental cold. Learning how to prepare for work during the winter, protect workers from the cold and other hazards that can cause illnesses, injuries, or fatalities, is essential to maintaining a safe work environment and completing tasks successfully.

It is time once again for students around the world to sharpen their pencils and charge up their video cameras as the American Society of Safety Engineers announces the kick-off of its 2015 Workplace Safety Poster and Video Contest in recognition of North American Occupational Safety and Health (NAOSH) Week.

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) yesterday issued urgent recommendations to the Federal Transit Administration, the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority and the American Public Transportation Association calling for improved ventilation procedures during smoke and fire events in tunnels.

Combustible dust – which, left uncontrolled or suspended in the air can explode -- was one of many safety hazards discovered after an inspection at the Thomas Moore Feed facility in Navasota, Texas, by OSHA inspectors. The company with cited for 18 violations and proposed a penalty of $58,100.

Asthma, back pain, and congestive heart failure are among the conditions showing reductions in health care costs in one large employer's disease management (DM) program, reports a study in the February Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, official publication of the American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine (ACOEM).

The current Ebola epidemic in West Africa is the largest in history and is unprecedented in many ways, including the large number of healthcare workers who have been infected while treating patients. The large scale of the epidemic, as well as the two healthcare workers who contracted Ebola while caring for the first case in the United States, has directed particular attention to the personal protective equipment (PPE) used by healthcare workers to reduce their risk of infection.

Mere months after two employees were injured by dangerous machines, Burrows Paper Corp. again put workers at risk. Acting on a complaint, OSHA found workers unjamming and servicing machines without proper safeguards during an Aug. 25, 2014, inspection.

In an age where academic degrees may be literally printed from home, some experts are calling for the development of minimum requirements to accredit academic programs in the occupational safety and health (OSH) profession. 

A 49-year-old machine operator was fatally crushed while reaching into an extrusion press to remove unprocessed aluminum parts because his employer, BRT Extrusions Inc., failed to ensure the machine's power was fully off so that it would not turn on during maintenance, a procedure known as lockout/tagout.

A new report says the stage is set for some dramatic confrontations over proposed regulations that will pit the White House and the EPA against a Republican Congress.