Air quality still a global problem

Not everyone has access to pure, fresh air.
Half the world's population live in nations with poor air quality.

The Yale-based 2016 Environmental Performance Index (EPI) has been released and while there were some improvements, the global report also points at troubling declines in areas such as air quality and fisheries.

Global air pollution has become a major concern and now accounts for 10 percent of all deaths, the report claims (compared to 2 percent of deaths due to foul water).

Too many people live and work in nations that expose them to unsafe levels of air pollution. We are talking half the world's population here, more than 3.5 billion people.

Apparently, it doesn't matter whether the nation is poor or overly industrialized. The authors of the report urged policymakers to work together to make changes and improve air quality. They point to successful initiatives like providing clean drinking water and sewage infrastructure.

The EPI looks at 180 countries and how they protect ecosystems and human health.

The full report is available online.

Welders at risk of toxic and explosive fumes

Blast kills temporary worker, critically injures another

Employers need to verify fire and explosion hazards: OSHA

MOSS POINT, Miss. — Two temporary workers hired to cut and weld pipes at the Omega Protein plant in Moss Point on July 28, 2014, had no idea and had no training to know that the storage tank beneath them contained explosive methane and hydrogen sulfide gases.

One of the two men found out later as he lay in a hospital with a fractured skull, internal injuries and broken bones. The second, a 25-year-old man named Jerry Taylor, died when the tank exploded.

The U.S. Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) investigated the incident and has found four companies violated safety regulations that could have prevented the tragedy.

The companies are Accu-Fab & Construction Inc., Omega Protein, and JP Williams Machine & Fabrication, all in Moss Point, and Global Employment, in Pascagoula.

Accu-Fab, a metal fabricator, was contracted by Omega Protein to manufacture and erect a wastewater storage tank that required modification of existing pipes.

A staffing agency, Global Employment Services, provided Accu-Fab with the employees needed at Omega. JP Williams Machine, which provides industrial service and repair, was on-site the day of the explosion performing unrelated maintenance activities.

"The Omega Protein plant explosion shines a spotlight on how critical it is for employers to verify, isolate and remove fire and explosion hazards in employee work areas," said Eugene Stewart, OSHA's area director in Jackson. "If the employer ensured a safe environment, this tragic incident could have been prevented."

Repeated violations

OSHA issued 13 citations to Omega Protein, a producer of omega-3 fish oil and specialty fish meal products, for willful, repeated and serious safety violations.

OSHA issued a willful citation for exposing employees to fire and explosion hazards due to Omega management's failure to inform Accu-Fab that the storage tank contained wastewater that could generate hydrogen sulfide and methane gases, which can be highly explosive and toxic, even at low concentrations.

The repeated violations involve not having standard railings on open-sided floors and platforms and failing to label electrical boxes properly.

Omega Protein was cited previously for these same violations in 2012. Additionally, the serious hazards included allowing workers to weld and cut piping on an improperly prepared storage tank containing explosive methane and hydrogen sulfide gases and failing to label or tag the storage tank to note that it contained hazardous chemicals.

OSHA cited Accu-Fab for one willful, four serious and two other-than-serious violations. The willful violation was issued for failure to train workers on chemical hazards in the work area, such as hydrogen sulfide, methane, welding gas and paints.

Global Employment Services was issued a serious citation for this same hazard.

Additionally, both employers were cited for a serious violation for failure to instruct employees about avoiding unsafe work conditions.

Accu-Fab was also cited for failure to ensure employees working on top of a storage tank at heights of up to 29 feet were wearing fall protection and for not recording this fatality or two other recordable injuries.

JP Williams was issued one serious citation for improperly storing oxygen and acetylene cylinders.

Exposure to acetylene can cause headache, dizziness, asphyxiation and even frostbite.

Proposed penalties for the four companies total $187,620.

OSHA has conducted 13 inspections at Omega Protein facilities in Mississippi, Virginia and Louisiana since 1998. The company received citations for noise exposure, personnel protective equipment, machine guarding, welding and cutting and electrical hazards.

Accu-Fab has three prior OSHA inspections, most recently in 2002, and has been cited for scaffolding, forklift, welding, cutting and electrical violations. Both JP Williams and Global Employment have no prior OSHA inspection history.

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Under the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970, employers are responsible for providing safe and healthful workplaces for their employees. OSHA's role is to ensure these conditions for America's working men and women by setting and enforcing standards, and providing training, education and assistance. For more information, visit OSHA's website.

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Firefighters have higher risk of cancer: Study

Study confirms cancer cluster among firefighters in Victoria

Firefighters are exposed to flammable
chemicals, combustion, foams and more.

Firefighters who worked at a Country Fire Authority facility in Victoria’s Ballarat region have a higher incidence of skin, testicular and brain cancers, a comprehensive study has found.

The study, conducted by Monash University, examined cancer and death rates linked to the Fiskville site between 1971 and 1999. It found 69 cancers were among the 606 people who worked and trained there, resulting in 16 deaths.

After releasing the findings, the Victorian premier, Daniel Andrews, told reporters the research confirmed “beyond any reasonable doubt” that there was a statistically significant increase in cancers associated with firefighters who worked at the site.

“This is a very tragic report,” he said. “The evidence is becoming clearer and clearer each day that people have become sick because of this place. People have died because of this place.”

Researchers found a cancer cluster in the high-risk group, considered to be those who worked full-time on the site training firefighters, and who were exposed to flammable chemicals, combustion, foams and recycled firewater.

Of 95 high-risk workers traced, 25 had cancer and six had passed away from their cancer, the study found.

In December, Andrews announced a landmark parliamentary inquiry to examine pollution, contamination and unsafe activities at Fiskville training centre from 1970 to 1990. It is expected to conclude in June this year.

The commission would provide victims and their families with answers and support, and would consider “how, not whether” those affected and their families would be compensated. “This is sad, tragic, and we’re going to put this right,” Andrews said.

But the risk was a historical one, he said. Many of the chemicals staff came into contact with were no longer used during training.

“For those who work here now, there are very low risks associated with this site today because remediation work has been done,” Andrews said. “There’s ongoing oversight and monitoring of those risks and that vigilance is critically important.”

A spokeswoman for the Country Fire Authority (CFA) said the organisation’s chief executive, Mick Bourke, would not be speaking to the media. “He will be communicating with CFA members at some point today through a blog post,” she said.

An official with the United Firefighters Union Victorian branch, Mick Tisbury, said it was “abhorrent” Bourke had refused to comment. The union was calling for his immediate resignation, he said.

“He and the CFA have been denying there was anything wrong with the place for years, they have put our health and safety at risk.

“We’re not expendable. We have families. We are people.”

Tisbury worked at the Fiskville site for 11 years.

“Every day, we have to live with this at the back of our minds,” he said.

In June last year, there was anger among some firefighters and their families when Cancer Council Victoria released a preliminary report that stated firefighters who worked at Fiskville did not have an increased incidence of cancer.

Cancer Council CEO Todd Harper said the report was commissioned only to look at data readily available by cross-referencing the records of 599 Victorian firefighters with data from the Victorian cancer registry.

“At the time we explained the limitations of this study, including imprecision of the relative risk estimates. So, while the earlier report did not find evidence of a cluster, nor did it rule out the existence of one. The Monash University study takes into account those firefighters who had moved interstate - information which was not available earlier.”

He said the council would like to see coordinated action at a national and state level in order to reduce the burden of harm from occupational cancers.

The co-investigator of the latest study, Professor Malcolm Sim, said the research was now more comprehensive, which is why the findings differed.

“The Cancer Council report only looked at firefighters in Victoria and was only supposed to be a preliminary examination, but what we did is trace firefighters who had moved interstate and we did pick up some cancer in those people,” said Sims, who is director of the Monash centre for occupational and environmental health.

“We also placed people into different categories of exposure based on existing guidelines for doing so. This is quite a major piece of work that used Australian Institute of Health data and took over one year to complete.”

The cancer results “stood right out”, Sims said. “Their death rates from other causes of disease, like heart and respiratory disease, were quite low, because these are healthy, fit people.

“That’s why their cancer results stood right out. There was a big gap between cancer and other diseases you don’t usually see in people like this, with healthy lifestyles.”

Researchers would look in more detail at the specific compounds associated with the cancers among the group, he said.

“The problem is the firefighters studied came into contact with a cocktail of exposures and chemicals, and we don’t know which ones may be contributing to their cancers,” Sims said.

Source: The Guardian

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Better air reduces death and disability rates: Study

Death and disability from air pollution down 35 percent in the U.S.

Air pollution affects hospital admissions,
mortality rates and cardiovascular disease,
research has shown.

A study by BYU professor Arden Pope concludes that improvements in U.S. air quality since 1990 have sparked a 35 percent reduction in deaths and disability specifically attributable to air pollution. Pope was a member of a large research team who co-authored the study for the Journal of the American Medical Association.

"Some of the best news relative to the air pollution research over the last few years is the evidence that our reducing air pollution in the United States has resulted in measurable improvements in life expectancy and public health," said Pope in a press release.

It's no coincidence that 1990 is a point of reference in air quality research. In the late '80s, a steel mill in Utah Valley shut down for one year due to a labor strike. Pope spotted a research opportunity that found big problems caused by small particles floating in the air. Known as "particulate matter," this kind of pollution is produced by combustion of car engines, power plants and steel mills.

Air pollution impacts lungs, heart and brain

Pope and other scholars found in successive studies that dirty air impacted hospital admissions, mortality rates, and cardiovascular disease – including the risk of heart attacks.

"One of the biggest surprises of this research was that air pollution contributed to cardiovascular disease and not just respiratory disease," Pope said. "In fact, we're learning that air pollution not only impacts our lungs but it impacts our heart and our brain."

The research caught the attention of scientists and regulators, which lead to automobile emissions standards and cleaner manufacturing processes.

Now a world-renowned expert on the topic, Pope was asked this year to evaluate the credibility of an intriguing study on China's air quality by scientists at MIT, Peking University, Tsinghua University and Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Editors of the Proceedings of the National Academies of Science invited Pope to write a commentary that accompanied a research paper on China's Huai River policy.

The Huai River runs west to east and is regarded as the geographical dividing line between northern and southern China. In winter, the Chinese government provides free coal to residents north of the river to heat their homes.

In denying coal to people who live south of the river, the Chinese government actually did them a favor. The researchers found that air pollution is 55 percent lower on the south side. They also estimated that life expectancy was five years lower on the north side because of the extra air pollution.

"While their results tend to be a bit higher than what we'd expect based on the rest of the literature, it's still roughly consistent with what we would expect based on the other studies that we've been doing," Pope said.

Source: Brigham Young University 

Reduce risks by improving indoor air at home and at work

Electrocorp air filtration systems
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We spend most of our time indoors, breathing air that may be polluted with chemicals, particulate matter, pollen, mold, bacteria, viruses, odors and fumes. At home and at work, a good ventilation system, the lack of or safe use of hazardous substances and a high-quality indoor air cleaner will help keep the air cleaner and healthier.

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Secondhand smoke responsible for $6.6 billion in lost productivity

Secondhand smoke is accountable for 42,000 deaths annually to nonsmokers in the United States, including nearly 900 infants, according to a new UCSF study.

Altogether, annual deaths from secondhand smoke represent nearly 600,000 years of potential life lost – an average of 14.2 years per person – and $6.6 billion in lost productivity, amounting to $158,000 per death, report the researchers.

The study, which involved the first use of a biomarker to gauge the physical and economic impacts of cigarette smoke, revealed that secondhand smoke exposure disproportionately affects African Americans, especially black infants.

The new research reveals that despite public health efforts to reduce tobacco use, secondhand smoke continues to take a grievous toll on nonsmokers.

The study was published in the American Journal of Public Health.

“In general, fewer people are smoking and many have made lifestyle changes, but our research shows that the impacts of secondhand smoke are nonetheless very large,” said lead author Wendy Max, PhD, professor of health economics at the UCSF School of Nursing and co-director of the UCSF Institute for Health & Aging. “The availability of information on biomarker-measured exposure allows us to more accurately assess the impact of secondhand smoke exposure on health and productivity. The impact is particularly great for communities of color.”

Exposure to secondhand smoke is linked to a number of fatal illnesses including heart and lung disease, as well as conditions affecting newborns such as low birth weight and respiratory distress syndrome.

About a decade ago, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention – using data from the California Environmental Protection Agency – reported that 49,400 adults died annually as a result of secondhand smoke exposure. Additionally, the CDC reported that 776 infants annually died as a result of maternal exposure in utero.

Those widely-cited statistics relied on self-reporting to gauge the impact of secondhand smoke.

The new study led by UCSF shows that the statistics on fatalities resulting from for ischemic heart disease are 25 percent lower than previously reported (34,000 deaths compared to 46,000), but nearly twice as high for lung cancer deaths (7,333 deaths compared to 3,400). The new study also shows higher infant mortality (863 deaths compared to 776).

The researchers used serum cotinine – a biomarker which detects the chemical consequences of exposure to tobacco smoke in the bloodstream - to measure exposure to secondhand smoke. That measurement reflects secondhand exposure in all settings, not just home or work, the authors wrote.

The scientists gauged the economic implications – years of potential life lost and the value of lost productivity – on different racial and ethnic groups.

Mortality was measured in two conditions for adults: lung cancer and ischemic heart disease; and four conditions for infants: sudden infant death syndrome, low birth weight, respiratory distress syndrome, and other respiratory conditions of newborns.

Of the 42,000 total deaths resulting from secondhand smoke, 80 percent were white, 13 percent were black, and 4 percent were Hispanic. The vast majority of deaths were caused by ischemic heart disease. Black babies accounted for a startling high 24 percent to 36 percent of all infant deaths from secondhand smoke exposure, the researchers reported, although blacks represented only 13 percent of the total U.S. population in 2006.

The value of lost productivity per death was highest among blacks ($238,000) and Hispanics ($193,000).

“Black adults had significantly greater exposure rates than did whites in all age groups,” the authors wrote. “The highest secondhand smoke exposure was for black men aged 45 to 64 years, followed by black men age 20 to 44 years. Black women aged 20 to 44 years had a higher exposure rate (62.3 percent) than did any other women.”

“Our study probably under-estimates the true economic impact of secondhand smoke on mortality,” said Max. “The toll is substantial, with communities of color having the greatest losses. Interventions need to be designed to reduce the health and economic burden of smoking on smokers and nonsmokers alike, and on particularly vulnerable groups.”

Photo: freedigitalphotos.net

Toluene exposure kills workers, results in fines for company

Health and safety measures are a must to
protect workers and the company itself.

A company is learning a hard lesson about the importance of health and safety: It faces 12 citations for safety violations after a worker died and another was hospitalized in November.

The workers were overcome by fumes from toluene, a toxic chemical.

According to OSHA, the men did not wear any respiratory protection while working with toluene and they were exposed to higher levels than allowed.

The company specializes in coating production and microscreens and uses toluene, a clear and colorless liquid, as a solvent.

OSHA guidelines limit peak toluene exposure to 10 minutes per single time period for any eight-hour shift, with a time weighted average exposure of 200 parts per million.

The small company failed to monitor toluene air concentrations, adjust ventilation systems when working with toluene, control ignition sources, come up with a hazard communication program, offer worker training on the hazards of coating material and implement other safety measures.

The company can respond to the complaint and defend itself.

Source: Wisconsin State Journal

Control airborne chemicals and fumes with air cleaners

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Occupational health alert: Workplace illnesses kill millions of Asians each year

Work-related illnesses and deaths in Asian countries may
be under-reported and ignored, a report says.

Millions of workers in Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand may be contracting fatal diseases at work, but the suffering is often ignored, unreported and uncompensated, a labor rights group reports.

The Asia Monitor Resource Centre (AMRC) is warning that death tolls may be much higher than estimated because official figures often don’t cover deaths of migrant workers.

That is why the actual number is bound to be much higher than the 1.1 million deaths in Asia due to work-related factors as estimated by the International Labour Organisation.

Some countries like Cambodia have no laws on occupational safety and produce no official figures.

But many poisonings or exposures cause fatal diseases in Asian factory workers, including silicosis due to fine dust settling in the lungs, cadmium poisoning from working in battery factories, and a lot more.

Since occupational health and safety standards are often non-existent or not enforced, many workers may be unaware of the risks and exacerbate the risks.

Source: The Guardian

Workplace illnesses need to be prevented

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Workers exposed to silica dust much more likely to die: Study

Silica dust exposure was linked to higher risks of
death from all causes.

Long-term exposure to silica dust puts industrial workers at a substantially higher risk of death from all causes than workers who have not been exposed, researchers say.

And the risk of death from lung and cardiovascular disease increases with increasing exposure.

Researchers in China examined 74,040 workers at different metal mines and pottery factories between 1960 and 1974, and followed up until the end of 2003.

Their results showed that death from all causes was much higher among workers who have been exposed to silica dust compared to workers who were not.

The more exposure they had, the bigger the risk of death from all causes, including respiratory diseases, respiratory tuberculosis and cardiovascular disease.

The researchers estimated that in 2008, 4.2% of deaths among industrial workers in China could be linked to silica dust exposure.

The findings add persuasive power to calls for improved occupational safety standards for workers exposed to silica dust, not only in China, but in all parts around the world.

The findings were published in PLoS Medicine.

Source: Public Library of Science

Protect workers by controlling dust

Even at or just below acceptable levels of silica dust, exposure may affect workers’ health and well-being.

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Hazardous chemicals at work: Will new labeling rules protect workers?

New labels on hazardous chemicals can help
protect workers, OSHA says.

The United States government aims to make improve labels on hazardous chemicals and make them conform to international guidelines developed by the United Nations, a recent AP report says.

According to OSHA, these new labels could help prevent 40 deaths and about 500 workplace injuries and illnesses related to exposure to harmful chemicals each year.

Hazardous materials are a common sight for US workers: About 43 million people come in contact with hazardous substances on the job.

The new labels will be less confusing and generally easier to understand.

Some companies might also benefit by saving on training costs and paperwork, OSHA says, since chemical manufacturers currently have to produce two sets of labels, one for U.S. standards and one for U.N. standards.

The new rules will be phased in over a period of time and will come into full effect in the year 2016.

The rules aim to improve protection for workers, employers and chemicals users and they also require companies to include hazard information about combustible dust.

Combustible dust can become an occupational hazard when tiny particles catch fire as a result of producing chemicals, plastics, metals and foods. In the future, there may be a separate rule specifically geared to combustible dust hazards.

Source: Washington Post

Cleaner indoor air at work with carbon air cleaners

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