Stuart Silverstein

FairWarning Assistant Editor Stuart Silverstein is a veteran reporter and editor who worked on the business, metro and national news staffs of the Los Angeles Times. He covered, among other beats, organized labor, economics and higher education. During his 32-year newspaper career, Stu also worked for dailies in Dallas, Atlanta and Buffalo. Stu has taught business journalism at USC. When he isn’t chasing stories, Stu enjoys seeing foreign films, studying foreign languages, working out and swimming. And he is interested in anything having to do with his hometown, Buffalo, N.Y.

A FairWarning Story

Feds find memory boosters were falsely labeled but refuse to say which ones

Stuart Silverstein

December 17, 2018

When the federal government examines widely sold dietary supplements and finds that they are falsely labeled, shouldn’t consumers be warned? That’s an issue some critics are raising following a recent evaluation by the Government Accountability Office of three leading dietary supplements marketed as memory boosters.

A FairWarning story

With rise in chemotherapy for pets, higher risks for veterinary staff

Stuart Silverstein

October 18, 2018

During a 2006 biopsy of a worrisome growth on his thyroid gland, while a needle was still lodged in his neck, Arizona veterinarian Brett Cordes was surprised by a question from his endocrinologist. The doctor, Cordes said, “asked me if I handled chemotherapy and hazardous drugs” at work, and he acknowledged that he did.

A FairWarning story

Nebraska firm and its owners hit with criminal charges in blast that killed 2 workers

Stuart Silverstein

August 28, 2018

The U.S. Justice Department announced a 22-count indictment Thursday against a Nebraska railroad services company and its owners related to an April 2015 explosion that killed two workers and injured a third.

A FairWarning story

Johnson & Johnson hit with $4.69 billion loss in baby powder-ovarian cancer case

Myron Levin Stuart Silverstein

July 13, 2018

The legal assault on Johnson & Johnson and its signature baby powder reached new heights today, when a state court jury in Missouri found the company responsible for the ovarian cancers of 22 women, and ordered the drug and consumer products giant to pay $4.69 billion in compensatory and punitive damages to the cancer victims or their survivors.

A FairWarning story

California throttles down pollution from small engines

Stuart Silverstein

November 14, 2017

New California rules aimed at curbing the surprising amount of pollution coming from leaf blowers, lawn mowers and other small gas-powered machines cleared a final hurdle Monday, and are set to take effect on Jan. 1. The requirements mark another step in the state’s long-running battle to reduce emissions from a category of small engines that have come to rival cars as a source of smog-forming pollution.

A FairWarning story

Noisy, but that’s not all

Leaf blowers flagged as prodigious polluters -- and possible health threat

Stuart Silverstein Anna Boiko-Weyrauch

September 20, 2017

Five years after starting his first job with a landscaping crew in the suburbs of Seattle, Fredi Dubon decided he had enough and called it quits. The work days were long, sometimes 12 hours, but a bigger problem was having to inhale exhaust from his gas-powered leaf blower.

OSHA’s Wall of Shame

With limited staff, agency targets 'Severe Violators'

Paul Feldman Stuart Silverstein

December 19, 2016

Soon after beginning their cleanup of a fume-filled tanker car at an Omaha, Neb., rail maintenance yard, Adrian LaPour and Dallas Foulk were dead. An explosion that April 2015 afternoon trapped LaPour in a flash fire inside the car and hurled Foulk out the top to his death.

A FairWarning.org story:

Swarms of drug industry lobbyists and campaign cash stymie bid to restrain Medicare prescription costs

Stuart Silverstein

October 21, 2016

When the Republican-controlled Congress approved a landmark program in 2003 to help seniors buy prescription drugs, it slapped on an unusual restriction: The federal government was barred from negotiating cheaper prices for those medicines. Instead, the job of holding down costs was outsourced to the insurance companies delivering the subsidized new coverage, known as Medicare Part D.

OSHA exposé

Federal agency that protects whistleblowers accused of retaliating against one of its own

Stuart Silverstein

April 14, 2016

For nearly five years, Darrell Whitman was a federal investigator who probed whistleblowers’ complaints about being fired or otherwise punished for exposing alleged corporate misconduct.

A FairWarning story

For big railroads, a carload of whistleblower complaints

Stuart Silverstein Brian Joseph

October 21, 2015

As both a veteran railroad worker and union official responsible for safety, Mike Elliott became alarmed when he learned of trouble-plagued train signals in his home state of Washington. Signals, he said, at times would inexplicably switch from red to yellow to green – potentially creating confusion that could lead to a crash. Elliott raised that and other signal issues repeatedly with his managers at BNSF Railway Co.

OSHA, the Occupational Health and Safety Administration, reports that companies who invest in safety will reap rewards in the form of all sorts of lower insurance premiums, including worker's compensation rates.

Forklift Safety has seen a renewed focus with the following additions: observance of National Forklift Safety Day, a revised ANSI lift truck industry standard, and a regulatory agenda item to revise the OSHA standard.

Stuart Silverstein

ARTICLES

Feds find memory boosters were falsely labeled but refuse to say which ones

With rise in chemotherapy for pets, higher risks for veterinary staff

Nebraska firm and its owners hit with criminal charges in blast that killed 2 workers

Johnson & Johnson hit with $4.69 billion loss in baby powder-ovarian cancer case

California throttles down pollution from small engines

Noisy, but that’s not all

OSHA’s Wall of Shame

Swarms of drug industry lobbyists and campaign cash stymie bid to restrain Medicare prescription costs

Federal agency that protects whistleblowers accused of retaliating against one of its own

For big railroads, a carload of whistleblower complaints

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