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Rep. John Shimkus (R-IL) released a draft bill entitled the Chemicals in Commerce Act (CICA) on Thursday, Feb. 27 that provides no significant improvements in protecting public health and the environment from toxic chemicals. Many of the provisions in the draft bill maintain the already deficient approaches to health protections now included under the 1976 Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), our nation's outdated and ineffective chemical safety law.

Call it the Ray Charles Effect: a young child who is blind develops a keen ability to hear things that others cannot. Researchers have long known this can happen in the brains of the very young, which are malleable enough to re-wire some circuits that process sensory information.

A company that operates 50 correctional facilities in the U.S. has agreed to take steps to reduce the potential for its employees to be injured  -- or worse -- by workplace violence, under a corporate-wide settlement with the U.S. Department of Labor.

DuPont Sustainable Solutions has released a new hazardous materials training program, Sulfuric Acid: Safe Handling, to help employees work safely with and around sulfuric acid.

Income level, occupational type and gender all play a part in whether or not a U.S. worker gets paid sick leave, according to a new study by the Institute for Women’s Policy Research. “Paid sick days bring substantial benefits to employers, workers, families, and communities,” according to by Claudia Williams, Barbara Gault, Ph.D., authors of:Paid Sick Days Access in the United States: Differences by Race/Ethnicity, Occupation, Earnings, and Work Schedule

The Chevron refinery fire in California in 2012 – the West Texas explosion last year – the West Virginia water crisis in January: All of these were preventable accidents. The United States is facing an industrial chemical safety crisis. After all of these accidents, we hear frustration and heartbreak.  Workers, emergency responders, and the public continue to die and suffer injuries.

A team of National Transportation Safety Board investigators left the U.S. for Asia on Saturday night, in order to assist with the investigation into the disappearance of the March 8 Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, which went missing on a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.

On August 6, 2003, a 44-year-old male farmer was welding a feed bunker wagon when he was electrocuted. The portable 240-volt plug-in cord-connected Hobart welder was in disrepair. The power cord and the cables had damaged insulation exposing the conductors. The welder lead cables were at least 10 years old and were 12 feet long.

A new NIOSH-funded study on fatalities in the construction industry suggests roofers in residential construction are among those most likely to die in falls from roofs. The study, "Fatal falls from roofs among U.S. construction workers," finds that "the odds of fatal falls from roofs were higher for roofing and residential construction than any other construction sector."