Despite being shut down during the partial federal government shutdown, the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) last week approved OSHA’s final Tracking of Workplace Injuries and Illnesses rule. What are the details? The public doesn’t know and will not know until the rule can be published in the Federal Register, which is closed for business during the shutdown.

Kansas drywall contractor cited following fatal forklift incident. Midwest Drywall Company, Inc., faces $77,604 in penalties after a worker was fatally crushed by part of a forklift. OSHA inspectors determined that the company failed to properly secure a suspended and supported load, and ensure that workers were kept clear of it.

OSHA's civil penalties amounts for violations of workplace safety and health standards will increase in 2019 to adjust for inflation. The adjusted maximum penalty amounts will take effect upon publication in the Federal Register. New penalties for willful and repeat violations will be $132,598 per violation; serious, other-than-serious, and posting requirements are $13,260 per violation.

Cleaning and disinfecting products are complex mixtures of chemicals that can irritate the skin. Evidence also shows that exposure to these products may increase the risk of work-related asthma among healthcare workers. But the effects of specific chemicals remain unclear. Now, a NIOSH study published in the journal Annals of Work Exposures and Health has added to our understanding by linking products and tasks to specific exposures.

OSHA is investigating a construction accident Wednesday evening in Cleveland, Ohio that claimed the life of a 65-year-old worker. News sources said crews were demolishing a three-story building when the accident occurred. The victim was operating an excavating and other workers were dismantling an elevator shaft when parts of the building fell on the excavator, crushing the man.

Although the fatal and destructive wildfires in California captured headlines last year, there were likely communities throughout the U.S. that remained untouched by wildfires because of the mitigation efforts of individuals and groups. Those efforts – which the public is rarely aware of – were honored recently by a partnership consisting of the National Association of State Foresters (NASF), the International Association of Fire Chiefs (IAFC), the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA), and the USDA Forest Service (USFS).

OSHA has cited RKM Utility Services Inc. for failing to protect workers from hydrogen sulfide after an employee died after exposure to dangerous levels of the gas while working in a trench in Dallas, Texas. OSHA inspectors determined that the company exposed employees to a hazardous atmosphere, failed to train employees on the health hazards of hydrogen sulfide, and did not drain water from the trench.

Most of the emergency responders dispatched to a serious incident involving a toxic gas exposure did not use required respirators for breathing protection, according to a NIOSH-funded investigation published in the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR). The gas, phosphine, forms when pesticides containing aluminum phosphide mix with water.

Want to be healthier and help save the planet at the same time? A “planetary health diet” unveiled yesterday in the medical journal Lancet will do both, according to the international team of scientists who developed it. The authors of the report say changes to the way we eat - across the globe - are urgently needed amid increasing obesity and climate change made worse by population growth, which is expected to reach 10 billion people by 2050.

With the recent resurgence of the most severe form of black lung disease among coal miners, especially in central Appalachia, understanding and preventing exposure to the respirable, or inhalable, dust generated during the extraction of coal is paramount. Black lung is a form of pneumoconiosis, or scarring lung disease, caused by breathing in dust that can occur with exposure to respirable coal mine dust.