The California Safety Services Group recently announced its 21st Annual Cal/OSHA Update Seminar Series will commence April 1, 2009. Cal/OSHA Representatives as well as recognized health and safety professionals will review and update significant Cal/OSHA regulation and policy changes, which occurred in 2008 as well as significant rulings of the Cal/OSHA Appeals Board.
The action follows an inspection last week that found numerous "deficiencies and discrepancies," all in violation of the requirements of the site's state-issued permit.
The Yakima, Wash.-based company agreed to spend more than $85,000 within the next year for safety improvements and to purchase new communications and rescue equipment for local fire departments.
The Department of Labor has announced that all former Connecticut Aircraft Nuclear Engine Laboratory (CANEL) workers have now been added to the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act's (EEOICPA) Special Exposure Cohort (SEC). EEOICPA provides compensation and medical benefits to employees who became ill as a result of working in the nuclear weapons industry. Survivors of qualified employees may also be entitled to benefits.
The Department of Labor recently announced that it has paid more than $100 million in compensation and medical benefits to Florida residents under the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act (EEOICPA).
The Department of Health and Human Services, Food and Drug Administration, and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have joined their efforts to provide important information about the recall of certain peanut butter and peanut-containing products that are associated with the recent Salmonella Typhimurium outbreaks through a new social media Web page at www.cdc.gov/socialmedia.
U.S. Reps. George Miller, D-Calif., and John Barrow, D-Ga., have reintroduced a bill to force OSHA to issue a regulation intended to prevent combustible dust explosions. U.S. Rep. Lynn Woolsey, who chairs the Workforce Protections Subcommittee of Miller's Education and Labor Committee, joined them.
To encourage "more complete public participation" on the proposed rulemaking, EPA also has added an additional public meeting that will take place in New Orleans on March 4.
OSHA is proposing $108,000 in penalties against Tippins Contracting Co. for seven safety violations that exposed its employees to possible injury or death at two construction sites.
The agency's safety review of the drug comes on the heels of a recent study reporting an increased risk of serious bleeding events and death in patients with sepsis and baseline bleeding risk factors who received the drug.
The public now has until March 9 to weigh in on the agency's proposal to add hazardous pharmaceutical wastes to the federal universal waste program.
Does shift work predispose you to cancer by altering the body’s response to hormones? And if so, can a dietary supplement help? Those are the questions researchers at The Cancer Institute of New Jersey (CINJ)--a Center of Excellence of UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School--hope to answer through a new study, which recently received $600,000 in funding from The V Foundation for Cancer Research.
Some genomic tests developed to personalize medical decisions about cancer care are beneficial, while for others the evidence is uncertain and reliance on the test might even lead to poorer medical management of cancer in some cases, according new recommendation statements from an expert panel.
The March 25 online broadcast will be presented by the author of the toxicology database, board-certified occupational medicine physician Dr. Jay A. Brown, M.D., MPH.
"There is no excuse for employees to work in such conditions," said C. William Freeman III, OSHA's area director in Hartford, Conn., the office that conducted the inspection.
Frigid temperatures, which each year cause hypothermia and other cold-related heath problems, resulted in more than 6,000 hospitalizations and 827 deaths in 2006, according to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.
A posh hotel besieged with panicked employees running for their lives and commandos ringing the buildings. We saw this crisis unfold live; it reminds us that now is the time to refresh employees’ awareness of evacuation and preparedness procedures and their own roles. Do it now!
Business continuity, continuity of operations, and contingency planning are now everyday concepts. Crises both natural and manmade have forced businesses to recognize that preserving life and property must actively be a top priority. Recognizing the need for all organizations to communicate instantly and reliably during critical circumstances, Congress in July 2008 directed the Department of Homeland Security to develop the first National Emergency Communications Plan (NECP).
This 2009 edition includes information on the nation's transportation system, and transportation issues related to safety and security, mobility, the economy, and the environment.
"A lack of fall protection and training leaves employees just a slip or a misstep away from a deadly or disabling plunge," said Robert Kowalski, area director of OSHA's office in Bridgeport, Conn., which conducted the inspection.