Although it’s an intricate piece of equipment with a number of components — including a facepiece, a breathing tube and a blower that passes contaminated air through a HEPA filter — a powered air purifying respirator (PAPR) depends heavily on something fairly ordinary in order to function well: a battery.

Time is money. It’s an old saying that we have heard a thousand times, but why is it so memorable? Perhaps because it’s true. The problem with this maxim is that to save time, people often lose sight of safety

There are numerous job tasks and functions throughout the construction industry that are notorious for producing massive amounts of dust. Typically these jobs involve grinding, sawing, drilling, and chiseling.

On Wednesday, Oct. 17, the 470 employees at Perdue’s further-processing operation in Bridgewater, Va., achieved two safety milestones. That’s the day when they reached four million consecutive production hours worked without experiencing an OSHA recordable lost-time case and one year without an OSHA recordable incident.

We live in a noisy world. Some noises can damage our hearing, leading to hearing loss, tinnitus (ringing in the ears), and difficulty communicating especially in background noise. Permanent noise-induced hearing damage is incurable.

Employers would do well to address social determinants of health (SDH) when deciding upon health insurance and wellness plans, according to a "fast-track" paper in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine.

The American Society of Safety Professionals (ASSP) has two key questions since the publication of ANSI/ASSP A10.28-2018, Safety Requirements for Work Platforms Suspended from Cranes or Derricks, which applies to platforms that companies suspend from the load lines of cranes or derricks.

Some companies may be reluctant to invite OSHA into a plant voluntarily but Mike DeSoto, chief operating officer of MI Windows and Doors, said the end result is "very worth it." DeSoto spoke at the recent American Architectural Manufacturers Association (AAMA) 2018 Fall Conference about the need to implement a culture of workplace safety.

A new website from the National Occupational Research Agenda (NORA) Manufacturing Sector Council features ways in which businesses and companies can safeguard employees from the release of hazardous energy during service and maintenance activities. This issue was taken up by NORA, the partnership program developed by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) which identifies workplace safety and health issues that require more attention and research.

An OSHA health compliance officer (an industrial hygienist -- IH) recently put me in an ethical dilemma. While conducting “side-by-side” air sampling as the employer’s representative during an OSHA inspection, I observed that the OSHA IH was not sampling for asbestos correctly.