It is not new news that agriculture has excessive worker injury rates. Nor that senior farmers and adult farmers in the South experience some of the highest occupational injury and mortality in the nation. There were an estimated 58,385 work-related adult farm injuries (more than six every hour) in 2014. In 2016, 417 farmers and farm workers died from a work-related injury.
The latest lawsuit against the manufacturer of a popular weed killer has resulted in a $2 billion award for a husband and wife who claimed Roundup caused them both to contract cancer.
The California jury award against Monsanto, maker of the glyphosate-based herbicide, is the third recent court decision of its kind – and the largest.
An Alameda County jury ruled that the non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma of Alva and Alberta Pilliod of Livermore, Calif. was due to their use of Roundup.
See the latest safety solutions, test new products & challenge your gaming skills
May 14, 2019
Hope to see you at the American Industrial Hygiene Conference & Expo (AIHce) in Minneapolis, May 20-22! Stop by booth 1402 for the latest in gas detection, including a sneak preview of the ALTAIR io360.
A Kansas aircraft manufacturer exposed its employees to hexavalent chromium and failed to monitor exposure levels, according to OSHA, which has assessed citations and fines against Spirit Aerosystems Inc.
According to OSHA inspectors, the Wichita-based company failed to
implement feasible engineering controls to limit employee exposure to hexavalent chromium, a known carcinogen...
After an investigation by OSHA, a jury in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania has awarded $40,000 for lost wages, pain and suffering, and punitive damages to a former employee of Fairmount Foundry Inc. The employee claimed that the Hamburg, Pennsylvania, iron-casting company terminated him for reporting alleged safety and health hazards to OSHA.
For Peggy Frank, a Los Angeles letter carrier, any federal or California safety rule ordering her employer—and all other firms—to protect workers from the hazards of excess heat didn’t work.
Frank, a 63-year-old grandmother, collapsed and died from California’s monstrously high heat while delivering the mail in Woodland Hills, a section of Los Angeles, last summer. The temperature in that particular neighborhood the day she died? 107 degrees.
Advocates in Florida are pushing for tougher standards for growers to protect their employees, arguing that rising global temperatures will make outdoor work unsustainable without the proper regulations.
Florida’s agriculture and construction employers could soon be required to train outdoor workers and managers on avoiding heat-related illnesses under proposed legislation.
The heat illness prevention bill, sponsored by Orlando Democrat Rep. Carlos Guillermo Smith, would set a statewide standard for all outdoor workers to be given plenty of drinking water, access to shade and ten-minute rest breaks enforced after every two hours of outside labor.
A fire that endangered the 24 crew members aboard a cargo ship was caused by the crew’s lack of adherence to the company’s safety management system, according to the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), which investigated the incident. The NTSB also pointed to guidance about hotwork from the marine chemist as a contributing factor to the fire aboard the Chipolbrok Moon.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, on average, over 600 people die from complications related to extreme heat each year in the United States - more than tornadoes, hurricanes, flooding, lightning or any other weather event combined.
Heat-related deaths and illnesses are preventable, but it’s important to identify the warning signs and to react swiftly and appropriately when they arise.
Whenever heat stress exceeds occupational exposure limits, workers should be protected by acclimatization programs, training about symptom recognition and first aid, and provision of rest breaks, shade, and water. A Heat Index of 85°F (29.4°C) could be used as a screening threshold to prevent heat-related illness.
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