Workers cleaning a chemical spill at Penda Corp. in Portage had not been trained in proper cleanup procedures or provided proper personal protective equipment, according to an investigation by the U.S. Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
The HSE (the United Kingdom’s Health and Safety Executive) only started issuing estimates of the number of ill health deaths in 2010. These are people who die in hospitals or at home after a long illness. They do not die in the workplace that gave them the illness.
A 55-year-old worker who was found unresponsive in a restroom at Bremer Manufacturing Co. Inc. on May 6, 2014 later died. The man, who had been employed at the Elkhart Lake foundry for the past 38 years, worked with resin-containing isocyanates on the sand molding line.
Drivers and loading-dock workers at UniFirst Corp. were exposed to hazards that involved bloodborne pathogens and lead at its West Caldwell, New Jersey, facility, according to an administrative law judge from the independent Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission.
A series of toxic chemical exposures at the Hanford Site is prompting stepped up safety measures at the vast nuclear cleanup site in southeastern Washington, according to documents obtained by KING 5 News.
The rampant use of toxic chemicals at almost every workplace is putting the huge number of the country's workforce at high health risk, as according to a survey, at least 21 people die in Bangladesh every month due to use of such chemicals.
Dr. Christine Whittaker Sofge of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) spoke on the subject of occupational exposure banding at the AIHA Fall Conference. Sofge, who is Chief of the NIOSH Risk Evaluation Branch in Cincinnati, OH, explored the question: “What to do when you don’t have a lot of data.”
USA Today reports that “Hospital workers treating Ebola patients should wear double sets of gloves, disposable hoods with full face shields and special masks, according to strengthened guidelines issued” last night by the CDC. CDC Director Thomas Frieden “said all health workers also should undergo ‘rigorous training’ and practice in putting on and taking off PPE in a systematic way that reduces their risk of infection.
In a message that will resonate across the country, the New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health (NYCOSH) and the New York State Nurses Association are urging employers in their state to make Ebola preparedness a top priority.
Currently, most workers in the U.S. are unlikely to encounter Ebola virus or individuals with Ebola Hemorrhagic Fever (EHF), according to OSHA. However, exposure to the virus or someone with EHF may be more likely in certain sectors, including the healthcare, mortuary/death care, and airline servicing industries.
