Title: Chair's Message

Author:

Section/SPIG: Occupational Health and Safety

Issue Date:

---

Michael Silverstein, MD
Clinical Professor
University of Washington School of Public Health
Dept. of Environmental & Occupational Health Sciences
F-561D Health Sciences Center, Box 357234
Seattle, WA 98195
masilver@u.washington.edu
Ph: (206) 897-1652 Fax: (206) 616-0477

My year as OHS Section Chair is drawing to a close, and I am left with two observations that are in tension with one another. The first is that our Section is a gathering place of energetic and creative advocacy for safe and healthy workplaces as well as for healthy, sustainable environments, universal health care, and a strong public health system. I have been repeatedly impressed by (and grateful for) the willingness of Section members to step forward and take leadership on important issues. For example, we successfully pressed APHA to take a strong position protesting the Department of Homeland Security's sting operation to trap immigrant workers by posing as OSHA representatives. And we are taking the lead on a late breaker resolution calling for attention to worker protection during Katrina recovery activities. Also, Section members have been generous in supporting the James Keogh Scholarship Fund, and we will be able to bring the biggest ever group of students to Philadelphia as a result.

My second observation, unfortunately, is that our nation's public health infrastructure is in terrible shape and getting worse. Hurricane Katrina revealed the scandalous way our emergency management system has been sacrificed to the political expediencies of an unjust war. And apparently unembarrassed by the abandonment of New Orleans' poor and dispossessed, the administration and congressional majority could not move in too fast to use the crisis as an excuse to suspend environmental, occupational and prevailing wage protections (although apparently prevailing wage rules have now been restored). With this experience still fresh, we find ourselves heading for a likely avian influenza pandemic with a president whose public health strategy seems to be turning domestic control to the military and setting aside regulatory protections for health workers.

Nevertheless, my overall mood, as we head to Philadelphia, is good. As always, challenge and crisis brings opportunities, and our Section is full of talented and committed people who simply do not give up. With an excellent scientific program planned for Philadelphia, extra sessions to address issues raised by Katrina, great social events, an outstanding group of awardees and scholarship recipients, and a strong group of incoming elected section leaders, I am confident that we are heading for a good year.

There are, of course, too many people who have helped this year to thank everyone individually. But I have to give special thanks to a few of you: Program Chair Janie Gittleman for handling the toughest job the Section has to offer with competence and grace; Secretary Leslie Nickels for keeping the minutes and organizing the phone conferences; Karla Armenti and Ingrid Denis for the newsletter; Karen Mulloy for the scholarship fund; Megan Roberts for the awards program; John Morawetz for nominations; Craig Slatin for his whole term on the Action Board; Rachel Rubin for work on the party and Celeste Monforton for the Cancer Alley tour that never happened; Kerry Souza for the OHS booth; and two really, very special extra thanks - to Karen Worthington for stepping in at the last minute and getting things together for us in Philadelphia and to Mary Miller for her boundless energy, institutional memory, commitment to worker protection, and eagerness to help.