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OSHA enforcement

Worker crushed by boulder; company cited

January 8, 2018
An OSHA investigation opened after a construction fatality has resulted in $212,396 in proposed penalties against the worker’s employer. The incident that prompted the inquiry occurred when a 2,600-pound rock dislodged from the building’s foundation and fatally struck a worker who was helping install permanent foundation supports beneath the Woburn Public Library in Woburn, Massachusetts.
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decrease

Cancer death rate continues its decades-long drop

Health experts credit tobacco control measures as one factor
January 5, 2018
The cancer death rate dropped 1.7% from 2014 to 2015, continuing a drop that began in 1991 and has reached 26%, resulting in nearly 2.4 million fewer cancer deaths during that time. The data is reported in Cancer Statistics 2018, the American Cancer Society’s comprehensive annual report on cancer incidence, mortality, and survival.
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MSD injury

New way to prevent MSDs among construction workers

January 5, 2018
A rating system helped predict which solutions construction workers would use to prevent musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs), according to a study at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Missouri that was funded by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH). The study appeared in the American Journal of Industrial Medicine.
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A Confined Space blog post

Boiled to death, buried alive and leg ripped off: The stories behind the statistics

Jordan Barab
Jordan Barab
January 4, 2018
One of the fathers of occupational health, Irving Selikoff, once said that “statistics are people with the tears wiped away.” Today, the statistics look bad. This week we learned that coal mining deaths doubled in 2017, and rose to their highest point in three years. Fifteen miners died on the job in 2017, compared with eight in 2016, according to the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA).
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train

Speed, but no cell phones behind deadly Amtrak derailment

January 4, 2018
It wasn’t distracted driving that caused last month’s fatal Amtrak derailment in Washington State, according to the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), which has released preliminary details in what is expected to be a lengthy investigation. Exactly what did cause the accident has yet to be determined.
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U.S. Chemical Safety Board

A driver’s mistake causes toxic release, endangers community

January 4, 2018
A chemical release that sent 140 people to the hospital was caused by a truck driver who mistakenly connected the hose for one chemical to the line for another. The Oct. 21, 2016 incident in Atchison, Kansas also provides valuable lessons in chemical safety, according to the U.S. Chemical Safety Board (CSB), which used it as the basis of a case study titled “Key Lessons for Preventing Inadvertent Mixing during Chemical Unloading Operations.”
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air pollution

Clean Power Plan changes will harm public health, says American Lung Association

January 3, 2018
"First, EPA proposed to revoke the Clean Power Plan, and now they have signaled their intention to replace the Plan with far weaker standards. The Clean Power Plan would have prevented up to 90,000 childhood asthma attacks and 4,500 premature deaths every year once fully implemented. Instead of implementing these lifesaving standards, EPA is moving toward...
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