Dennis Mason's body was found, face down, between his truck and a crude oil tank at a well site near Kingfisher, Okla. Investigators immediately suspected he was killed by toxic vapors from the oil. But they weren't able to prove it, because state medical examiners didn't test Mason's blood for petroleum chemicals before declaring his death natural, the result of heart failure. OSHA inspectors had quickly sent word to the medical examiners that they suspected his death was related to his job hauling oil for Sunoco Logistics Partners.

It almost sounds like the plot of a movie. Alert neighbors living near a home being renovated notice that some workers are improperly removing exterior asbestos tiles from the structure. They confront the man who claims to be the homeowner. He promises to remove the asbestos correctly, but the neighbors take videos showing that his workers continue to commit asbestos-related violations. Angry that the neighborhood’s residents – and those workers – are being exposed to the dangerous substance, they contact the...

OSHA is reminding employers to take necessary precautions to protect workers from the potentially fatal effects of carbon monoxide exposure. Every year, workers die from carbon monoxide poisoning, usually while using fuel-burning equipment, tools, compressors and pumps, gas-powered forklifts, and other devices in buildings or semi-enclosed spaces without adequate ventilation.

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has issued five safety recommendations Thursday following completion of its investigation of the Aug. 27, 2016, chlorine release from a ruptured rail tank car near New Martinsville, West Virginia. There were eight injuries reported in connection with the accident in which 178,400 pounds of liquefied compressed chlorine was released in the course of two and a half hours after a DOT-105 rail tank car sustained a 42-inch long crack in its tank shell shortly after being loaded at the Axiall Corporation Natrium plant.

Industrial Scientific, the global leader in gas detection, is pleased to announce the migration of all iNet® infrastructure to Amazon Web Services (AWS), the world’s leading cloud provider. The demand for live gas detection data continues to grow, and with that growth, there is an expectation of increased data accessibility and analytics.

The U.S. Chemical Safety Board has released its final report of the June 27, 2016, investigation of an explosion and fire at the Enterprise Products Pascagoula Gas Plant in Pascagoula, MS. The CSB determined that the probable cause was a phenomenon known as thermal fatigue. The CSB also issued recommendations to two trade associations and local emergency responders.

It’s February, which means that Valentine’s Day is right around the corner, and love is in the air. At the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), we like to use this time of year as an opportunity to show our appreciation for the personal protective equipment (PPE) that keeps the people we love safe. In this spirit, NIOSH recently set a goal to improve the safety and health of fire fighters by reducing their exposure to harmful contaminants due to unclean or inadequately cleaned PPE.

The Board of Directors of the American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists (ACGIH) has ratified the 2019 Threshold Limit Values (TLVs®) for Chemical Substances and Physical Agents and Biological Exposure Indices (BEIs®). TLVs® and BEIs® are guidelines to be used by professionals trained in the practice of industrial hygiene. The TLVs® and BEIs® are not designed to be used as standards.

OSHA has posted new frequently asked questions (FAQs) on the agency's standard for respirable crystalline silica in general industry. The agency says it developed the FAQs in consultation with industry and union stakeholders to provide guidance to employers and employees on the standard's requirements, such as exposure assessments, regulated areas, methods of compliance, and communicating silica hazards to employees.

The American Industrial Hygiene Association is pleased to support the Society for Chemical Hazard Communication's professional development training, HazCom Registry Preparation, in Las Vegas, Nevada. The course, designed for hazard communication professionals preparing to sit for the Safety Data Sheets & Label Authoring Registry competency assessment, will be presented on March 16-17 by Robert Skoglund, Ph.D., DABT, CIH; Denese A. Deeds, CIH, FAIHA, SDSRP; Douglas Eisner, M.S.; Chandra D. Gioiello, M.S., CIH; and Robert Roy, Ph.D., DABT.