One person was killed and approximately three dozen injured in an explosion and fire last week at a cosmetics factory in New York state. Seven of the injured were firefighters who were inside the facility, responding to a first blast, when a second explosion occurred.
After multiple delays, OSHA has finally announced that employers who are required to keep OSHA injury and illness records must send summary information in to the agency by December 15, fifteen days after the deadline announced last June, when the agency proposed to delay the reporting deadline from July 1 to December 1.
‘Workplaces are not merely spaces where people work – they are spaces where people live their lives. Anything which would be prohibited on grounds of consumer health or environmental protection should also be prohibited in workplaces.’ These were the words with which Laurent Vogel, a researcher at the European Trade Union Institute (ETUI), closed the ‘Work and Cancer’ conference organised by the ETUI in November in Brussels.
Changing our behavior could help many more Americans avoid cancer, according to a new American Cancer Society (ACS) study that calculates the contribution of several modifiable risk factors to cancer occurrence. The study finds that more than four in ten cancer cases and deaths in the U.S. are associated with these major modifiable risk factors, many of which can be mitigated with prevention strategies.
The entire 22-member Editorial Board of the International Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health resigned this morning after a months-long struggle with the Journal’s new owners who have “have acted in a profoundly unethical fashion” and have moved the worker-oriented publication to a more corporate focus.
Does the holiday season have you indulging in too much fattening food and too many adult beverages? Do the festivities leave you little time for your regular workouts? Do family gatherings re-ignite old conflicts or usher in new ones? (Oh, those political arguments between Uncle Mike and Cousin Betty!)
Cal/OSHA has cited six employers $241,950 for workplace safety and health violations after reports that workers contracted Valley Fever on a solar project construction site in Monterey County. Valley Fever is caused by a microscopic fungus known as Coccidioides immitis, which lives in the top two to 12 inches of soil in many parts of the state. When soil is disturbed by digging, driving, or high winds, fungal spores can become airborne and may be inhaled by workers.
OSHA has cited Tampa Electric Co. and Critical Intervention Services, a security services provider, for $43,458 in total proposed penalties, following a release of anhydrous ammonia – a chemical refrigerant – at its Gibsonton facility.
OSHA responded to the incident on May 23, 2017 and determined that the ammonia release occurred when a relief valve activated after a pipeline became over pressurized. As a result, four workers were taken to the hospital for observation and released.
Data released by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) yesterday revealed that 2,030 more people died in transportation accidents in 2016 than in 2015, with highway fatalities accounting for 95 percent of all transportation fatalities in 2016. The data indicate 39,339 people lost their lives in transportation accidents in 2016, compared to 37,309 who died in 2015. In addition to the increase in highway fatalities, increases were also seen in the marine and railroad sectors, with a slight decrease in aviation fatalities.
Hundreds of people gathered in Farmington, West Virginia on Sunday to commemorate a 49-year-old mining tragedy that killed 78 miners. The solemn ceremony held at Flat Run Memorial honored victims of the November 20, 1968 Farmington mine disaster in the Consol No. 9 coal mine north of Farmington and Mannington.
There were 99 miners at work that day when an explosion rocked the mine. The blast was strong enough to be felt in Fairmont, almost 12 miles away. Fires caused by the blast burned for over a week.
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