An auto insulation manufacturer in suburban Toledo faces $569,463 in proposed penalties after an OSHA investigation following a report that a machine amputated a 46-year-old worker's right hand, wrist and part of his forearm.
Increasing affordability expected to hamper efforts to address global obesity epidemic
May 8, 2017
A new American Cancer Society study concludes that sugar-sweetened beverages have become more affordable in nearly every corner of the globe, and are likely to become even more affordable and more widely consumed. The study appears in the journal Preventing Chronic Disease, and concludes that without policy action to raise prices, global efforts to address the obesity epidemic will be hampered.
One of the main challenges of running an agency like OSHA is ensuring that a mid-20th century law adequately assures worker safety and health under 21st century working conditions. The economy and structure of work is very different than it was in 1970 when the Occupational Safety and Health Act was passed: for example, there far fewer unionized workplaces and far more “temporary” workers.
Investigators from the U.S. Chemical Safety Board (CSB) are in Firestone, Colorado to examine what’s left of a home that blew up when an abandoned pipeline from a nearby well leaked gas into the basement. The explosion killed two people and left a third badly burned.
In the first three months of 2017, five miners died in accidents that occurred when they were working alone on mine property. To raise awareness of the potential dangers in doing so, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) has launched an initiative to focus on the hazards miners may encounter when they work in areas away from others.
The driver of a pickup truck was texting before crashing into a bus in Texas and killing all 13 people in it, according to the preliminary report released by the National Transportation Safety Board NTSB about the March 29 accident near Concan, Texas.
A contract worker was seriously injured when a trolley struck and crushed him inside the Wal-Mart Distribution Center in Brundidge, Ala. OSHA cited Wal-Mart and the worker’s employer, Swisslog Logistics Inc., for serious and willful violations for exposing workers to caught-between, struck-by and crushing hazards and for failing to implement lockout/tagout procedures.
OSHA’s National Safety Stand-Down to Prevent Falls in Construction takes place next week, May 8-12. It’s a voluntary event during which employers are asked to take a break – or “stand down” – and have a conversations with their workers about fall hazards and fall prevention. It can also be an opportunity for employees to talk to management about fall hazards they see on the job.
Soon after Erin Card moved to within two miles of the Radford Army Ammunition Plant in Virginia two years ago, she began to notice threads of smoke that occasionally rose above the heavily wooded site. She started asking about the source, and eventually was stunned by what she learned: Toxic explosives were being burned in the open air.
A Texas measure that would encourage school districts and educators to include workplace health and safety training information in the curricula of grades 7-12 schoolkids got a boost from AIHA President Steven E. Lacey, PhD, CIH, CSP, who traveled to the state to testify in support of the bill at a House Public Education Committee hearing.