Meeting Stressed the World of IH
The international flavor of AIHce 2013 transcended the host city. Speakers, exhibitors, and educational topics reflected the global nature of industrial hygiene and workplace safety.
MONTREAL -- This year's AIHce meeting certainly was international, and not merely because of its location. Many of the presenters, educational topics, and exhibitors came from beyond U.S. shores, as did some award winners. The strong impression was of the increasingly global nature of EH&S issues and solutions, some of which depend on cross-border cooperation.
The message resonated to many attendees because the conference occurred within weeks of two catastrophic incidents in which workers were killed, the Rana Plaza building collapse in Bangladesh that killed more than 1,000 people and the West, Texas fertilizer facility explosion, in which 15 people died, including more than 10 emergency responders.
Session presenters from Canada, especially, but also Sweden, China, Germany, Korea, Norway, Taiwan, and England, among others, participated. The William P. Yant Award Lecture on Tuesday was given by Jukka Takala, DSc, MSc, BSc ., executive director of the Workplace Safety and Health Institute at the Ministry of Manpower Services Centre in Singapore.