Solving the opioid epidemic requires a “whole person” approach that includes nonpharmacological treatment for pain, as well as ensuring that people have the employment, education and housing supports they need for long-term recovery, the chief executive officer of the American Psychological Association (APA) told a congressional panel.

The U.S. Department of Transportation is in the midst of building a regulatory framework in order to “retain United States leadership and enable the limitless potential and possibilities of commercial space.” That’s the message delivered by Acting Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Administrator Daniel K. Elwell recently in Le Bourget, France, to an aerospace industry Commercial Space Panel at the Paris Air Show.

By allowing someone with a known physical impairment to drive a school bus, an Iowa school district is partly responsible for a 2017 crash and fire that killed both the driver and a female student who was his passenger. That determination is part of the National Transportation Safety Board’s (NTSB) investigation into the Dec. 12 incident in Oakland, Iowa involving a bus operated by the Riverside Community School District.

The Trump administration’s efforts to weaken a mining safety rule was reversed last week by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. A three-judge panel ruled that allowing mine operators flexibility in when they can conduct inspections of mines for hazardous conditions would violate the Mine Act’s no-less-protection standard.

OSHA has cited Southern Tire Mart LLC – based in Columbia, Mississippi – for failing to protect employees from serious safety hazards after a worker suffered fatal injuries while attempting to mount a monster truck tire rim at the company’s retreading facility in Fort Worth, Texas. The company faces $341,195 in fines.

More than a hundred groups and hundreds of individuals from Pennsylvania have signed onto a letter to the state’s governor, calling for an official investigation into recent reports of rare cancers in counties heavily impacted by shale gas development over the last decade. The letter also calls for the Governor Tom Wolf to suspend all gas drilling permits until the investigation shows that fracking is not the cause of what appears to be an emerging public health crisis.

Flooding caused by heavy rainfall is one of the possible causes of a fiery train derailment earlier this year that killed and injured horses and leaked high-hazard, flammable chemicals into the environment, including a nearby river.

Occupational health and safety professionals may not immediately see the link between employee engagement and safety, but it exists. If an employee doesn't feel engaged with their work, they also may not be sufficiently motivated to stay safe. Here's a look at why safer employers are engaged workers and vice versa.

Although the U.S. has had considerable success at preventing and controlling rabies during the past 80 years, exposure to rabid animals sends approximately 55,000 Americans to hospital emergency departments each year. Dr. Anne Schuchat, Principal Deputy Director of the CDC, said that vaccination programs for dogs and the availability of post-exposure prophylaxis, or PEP, the vaccine and medicine people get to prevent rabies if they may have been exposed to a rabid animal, have contributed to a 95% decrease in annual rabies deaths in people.

Work being done to prepare for the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo is raising concerns about worker safety. A report entitled, “The Dark Side of the Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympics,” published last month by the Building and Wood Workers’ International (BWI) union, claims that laborers – many of them foreign workers – are being overworked and discouraged from reporting poor employment conditions.