Government Safety Regulations

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Teenagers from local high schools flock to Brooklyn Vape in downtown Brooklyn. The store is small – a single room with vape paraphernalia stacked to the ceiling in glass cabinets. Many of the teens walk awkwardly through the shop and ask the clerk, a man who goes by Ali and wouldn’t give his last name, if they can buy an e-cigarette.

In a closely watched election contest, San Francisco voters have upheld a first-in-the-nation ban on the sale of menthol cigarettes and other flavored tobacco products, overwhelmingly rejecting an $11.6 million campaign by R.J. Reynolds to scuttle the law. San Francisco officials last June approved the ban but a petition drive funded by Reynolds, the maker of the top-selling menthol brand, Newport, forced the issue onto yesterday’s ballot.

Emergency eyewash systems and drench showers should be easy to access and readily available with tepid water. But as many safety facility managers will attest, these potentially life-saving fixtures aren’t always easy to provide in locations where they are required.

Most fear that distracted driving is getting worse. Drivers who report using a cellphone behind the wheel has jumped 46 percent since 2013, and almost half (49 percent) of all drivers report recently talking on a hand-held phone while driving, and nearly 35 percent have sent a text or email.

One of the first actions of the Republican Congress after Trump’s election was to repeal OSHA’s recently issued “Volks Rule” that allowed the agency to cite companies for continuing failure to accurately record injuries and illnesses. Now an article by Will Evans at Reveal shows how real workers are suffering because of automaker Tesla’s failure to record numerous serious injuries and how the company will likely get away with it because of the action of Congressional Republicans and Donald Trump, who signed the repeal bill.

Health advocates are condemning a legislative move made last week by the U.S. House Appropriations Committee that they say will significantly undermine public health by weakening the FDA’s ability to regulate tobacco products. A rider attached to the agriculture funding bill will exempt some types of cigars from FDA oversight and lessen the agency's authority to review the health hazards of thousands of tobacco products.

According to research by Mark V. Sherrid, MD, New York University Langone Medical Center, et al, published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology in March 2017, certain states require or recommend AED placement in various settings, including schools. Following is a summary, based on this research.