Occupational Health and Safety
Section Newsletter
Spring 2004

Chair's Message

David Kotelchuck, PHD, CIH
Environmental & Occupational Health Sciences Track
Hunter College
Business: 212.481.4357
Fax: 212.481.5260
<dkotelch@hunter.cuny.edu>

I’m happy to announce that APHA, at the OHS Section’s urging, has agreed to sign an amicus curiae brief on behalf of William and Alyssa Pfleging in a New York State case against IBM and others, in which the two allege that the chemicals Mr. Pfleging was exposed to at the IBM plant in Fishkill, N.Y., caused serious birth defects to his daughter Alyssa, born in 1974. In particular the APHA brief relates only to one aspect of the case -- namely an appeal of an earlier New York State court decision which banned this suit because the allegation that the father brought harmful chemicals home on his clothing and in his seminal fluids and thereby caused harm to his daughter in utero was not a “cognizable cause of action” in New York state. That is, New York state law, the court interpreted, does not recognize that harmful chemicals in the workplace can be brought off premises and cause harm to a worker’s family members, and hence they have no right to sue in this state! Let me give a little background to the broader case and this scientifically bizarre ruling:

On March 28, 1996, seven workers from the IBM Fishkill plant in New York State filed lawsuits against IBM and four companies which supplied chemicals to the plant, alleging that their exposures caused cancers to them and severe birth defects to their children.

The New York Times led off its article about the case that day by describing how in 1988 Miriam Nicole Sanders, James Gibbons and Glenn Haight worked on an IBM production line. Four years later, Sanders was dead of cancer at age 24, Gibbons, 28, had a testicular tumor and Haight, 26, was fighting cancer.

Later about 200 others from IBM Fishkill brought suit, as well as employees and former employees from IBM plants in San Jose, Calif. and Rochester, Minn. Most are represented by the California law firm of Alexander, Hawes and Audet, as well as local counsel.

Many of the cases, especially those against the chemical companies, have been settled out of court, for undisclosed sums of money and with no admission of guilt by the defendants. For example the family of Zachary Ruffing, born blind and with other severe birth defects, and with both parents former IBM employees, settled in 2001. (NY Times, 10/13/03)

Seven years later (!), the first of these cases went to court in San Francisco, and as many of you know, the two plaintiffs in that lawsuit lost their case. Since in California, as in most states, workers compensation is the only remedy for work-related injuries and illnesses, the plaintiffs had the legally difficult task of proving that IBM knew that the chemicals they were using caused cancers and chose to cover up this information. One of the key pieces of evidence for this allegation was an epidemiological analysis of IBM’s Corporate Mortality File, in which it had recorded deaths of company employees from 1970-2000. This analysis, carried out by Dr. Richard Clapp of Boston University (a long-time APHA member), showed rates for some cancers in excess of population norms. However, the judge ruled this report inadmissible under California State law, a major blow to the plaintiffs. (See also NY Times 10/13/03 and 2/27/04.)

The next of these suits will begin soon in New York State. Here the two lead defendants are father and daughter, William and Alyssa Pfleging. The father was working in the IBM plant in Fishkill when his wife gave birth to Alyssa, who was born in 1974 without limbs below her knees or elbows.

Alyssa’s case does not involve workers compensation, of course. But other serious problems highlight the difficulties in bringing a suit against a U.S. manufacturer. In order to bring their case to court, she and her father must appeal and seek to overturn a lower court ruling that in New York State parties cannot sue based on "off-premises" exposures, such as workplace exposures, which might have affected the health of children developing in utero. This is completely out of synch with what we have long known in science, and for which there is extensive scientific evidence, that environmental and occupational exposures can and do cause harm to developing fetuses. We have referred frequently over the years in our APHA resolutions, especially in our lead resolutions, to the potential harm to the fetus caused by in utero exposures. Also we are all well aware of the extensive scientific findings, such as those by Dr. Irving Selikoff and colleagues, that asbestos dust brought home by parents working in asbestos factories can and does cause harm to their family members, including their children.

The law firms in the IBM case are asking the courts to grant them leave to contest this scientifically out-of-date decision. That is why APHA input on public health science will be of great importance at this time. It seeks effectively to help put New York state laws in synch with the current state of scientific knowledge on this issue.

This action will result in APHA involvement in what is one of the important occupational and environmental legal cases of this decade, and involves us in our area of scientific expertise. I am proud that APHA has filed a brief in this case, and applaud Dr. Georges Benjamin and his staff, especially Donald Hoppert, for taking this action, and in a timely fashion.

(NOTE: In involving itself here, APHA is not asserting that the defendants
were affected by the chemicals they used in the workplace, that will be decided
in a later case. The amicus curiae brief but simply asserts that the courts in New York state must consider in utero
exposure to toxic chemicals as a possible route of harm in such cases. There is
no doubt in my mind that the scientists working for the companies being sued
would agree that in utero exposures are a recognized route exposure to the
fetus, as virtually all scientists today would.)

Return to Top

APHA and Section News

Update for 2004 Annual Meeting
Nov. 6-10 in Washington, D.C.

Celeste Monforton
<eohcnm@gwumc.edu>

--The OHS Section's scientific sessions and section meetings will take place in the D.C. Convention Center, not in one of the nearby hotels. All speakers and attendees will need a badge (that is, they must be registered) to enter the Convention Center. The OHS Section has 10 free "one-day passes" to offer to speakers, such as the presenters for the "Research by the Rank-and-File" session or a session featuring high school students. If you know someone who'll need a one-day pass, please contact Celeste Monforton at <eohcnm@gwumc.edu>.

--This will be the first year that LCD projectors will be stationed in the session rooms!! (No more overhead or slide projectors.)

--The OHS Section meetings formerly called "business meetings" will now be called "Section meetings." We are hoping to eliminate the impression that the meetings are only for leadership or reserved for persons with official Section business. The first Section Meeting will be on Sunday, Nov. 7 at 9:15 a.m.

--Thanks to Kathy Kirkland, Roni Neff, Marilyn Radke and Tom Wickizer for reviewing abstracts.

Return to Top

Nominations for Occupational Health & Safety Section Awards

Megan Roberts
<toosunny2c@yahoo.com>

Nominations for the OHS Section awards are open from now until May 15
The OHS section offers awards in 3 categories:

Alice Hamilton (1869-1970). Alice Hamilton, considered the founder of occupational health in the United States, was a tireless activist and physician who dedicated her life to improving the health and safety of workers. She was committed to science, service, and compassion. This award recognizes the life-long contributions of individuals who have distinguished themselves through a career of hard work and dedication to improve the lives of workers.

Lorin Kerr (1909 -1991). Lorin Kerr was a life-long activist and served for over 40 years as a physician for the United Mine Workers. He was dedicated to improving coal miners' and other workers' access to care,
and to attaining black lung disease compensation and prevention. This award recognizes a new activist for sustained and outstanding efforts and dedication to improve the lives of workers.

International. This award recognizes individuals with outstanding achievement in the field of occupational health and safety outside the United States.

Please send your nominations to Megan Roberts at <toosunny2c@yahoo.com> by May 15. Include the name of the nominee, the award for which s/he is nominated and ONE PARAGRAPH ONLY describing why s/he should receive the award.

Return to Top

New Occupational and Environmental Health APHA Policies

Karla Armenti, ScD
OHS Section Newsletter Editor
<armeka@comcast.net>

The Occupational Health & Safety and Environment Sections of APHA have recently submitted six new policies to the APHA Joint Policy Committee for comments. You may view them at:
<http://www.apha.org/private/2004_Proposed_Policies/index.htm>.

Since many of these policies were initiated by the Environment Section, the leadership and policy group of the OHS section provided comments to ensure the inclusion of worker safety and health issues in these policies. In particular, we proposed that for Policy B-3, the work environment be a major component of our built environment, which should be built for worker safety, ergonomics, and should promote pollution prevention through the integration of designs that prevent worker injuries and illnesses as well as protect the pollution of the environment. For Policy B-4, we suggested that work environment health education be recognized and included as an essential element for all health professional education in order to focus on developing their understanding of the intricate relationships and links between community health, environmental health, and work environment health. Policy B-5 focuses on the prevention of human exposure to polybrominated diphenyl ether (PBDE) fire retardants. For this policy, the section policy committee wanted to ensure the inclusion of a provision to protect against the economic and health-related harm to chemical production workers that could suffer from job loss in the event this part of the chemical industry is eliminated. Policy B-6 affirms the necessity of a secure, sustainable, and health-protective energy policy. Again, our section would provide for protecting energy related workers against the economic and health-related harm were they to lose their jobs from implementation of the proposed policy.
Please feel free to review these and the other APHA policies at: <http://www.apha.org/private/2004_Proposed_Policies/index.htm>.
The Committee will continue to keep you updated on the development of those policies that pertain to occupational and environmental health.

Return to Top

APHA Drafting Letter of Support for Fernanda Giannasi

Fernanda Giannasi has been a labor inspector in Brazil for over two decades. During this time her work has brought her into contact with workers who mine and manufacture asbestos-containing products, still in widespread use in Brazil. She is a founder of ABREA, the Association of Asbestos-Exposed Workers in Brazil, and the Coordinator in Latin America of the Citizen’s Virtual Network Against Asbestos.

In 1999 she received the annual international award for her occupational health and safety work from the APHA Occupational Health and Safety Section. In 2001 she was made a Fellow of Collegium Ramazzini, a respected international organization of scholars and researchers in the field of occupational health and safety.

She is widely known in Brazil through her work in ABREA and through her public speeches and many TV and newspaper interviews. In 2001 she was a finalist for the prestigious Claudia award for Brazil’s Woman of the Year.

In 1998 she was sued by Eternit S.A., a major Brazilian asbestos company, for comments she made about the company’s treatment of ailing workers. After world-wide protests, including a letter of support from APHA, the case was dismissed and the company decided not to appeal the court’s decision. Now she is being sued for a second time: This time by former Labor Minister Almir Pazzianotto Pinto for insulting his honor, a crime under Brazilian law. Pinto supported a company union founded by Saint Gobain, a French-based multinational with major asbestos holdings in Brazil, and was publicly criticized by Giannasi after the breakdown of negotiations. She accused him of falsely listing the names of current and past asbestos workers as supporters of his union, and of other “maneuvers.”

Since the suit was initiated, her activities as a labor inspector have successively been restricted. In December 2003 she was forbidden by the Labor Ministry to inspect an asbestos cement factory in northern Brazil. Later she was told that for her own protection, she could no longer travel outside Sao Paulo to carry out inspections. In February 2004 she was officially informed by the Ministry that she could no longer participate in any labor inspections and has been restricted to her office in Sao Paulo.

Her criminal trial for offending the honor of the former Labor Minister was to have begun on Feb. 17, 2004. However, when she arrived in court, she was told that the original magistrate assigned to the case had been arrested on corruption charges (for alleged ties to organized crime in Brazil). The new presiding judge has now postponed further hearings until September 2004.

The stakes for Giannasi are high. She remains confined to her office, unable to carry out her ordinary work duties, and has recently received death threats from unknown parties. These threats take on new meaning in light of the unsolved slaying of three other labor inspectors on a public road on Jan. 28, 2004, as they were going to investigate a soybean plantation allegedly using slave labor. (In the interior of Brazil, these inspectors are routinely accompanied by armed federal guards, but in a cost-cutting measure such protections have been withdrawn recently.) Also, Giannasi has had to bear the legal costs of both trials herself; she has had no financial support from the Ministry in which she works.

Members of the OHS Section of APHA, who know and remember Giannasi from her visit to the United States in 1999 to receive our section award, have as individuals been sending letters and e-mail to Brazil in her support. She has also received letters of support from Collegium Ramazzini, many major British labor leaders, and seven members of the British Parliament, who have introduced a so-called early morning motion to bring attention to her case. There has been relatively little public discussion of her case in the United States, and the leaders and members of our Section believe a letter of support from APHA will be timely and most helpful.

NOTE 4/26/04: APHA is currently drafting a letter of support for Fernanda.

*******************************************************************

Note to OHS Section members:

For further information on Giannasi’s case, you can go to the Web site of the London-based International Ban Asbestos Secretariat <www.ibas.btinternet.co.uk>. Also for an international perspective on production and use of asbestos worldwide and its impact, see Joseph LaDou’s current article in Environmental Health Perspectives, March 2004, pp.285-90.

Return to Top

Help the China Labor Support Network

Garrett Brown
<gdbrown@igc.org>

Betty Szudy
<bszudy@uclink4.berkeley.edu>

We are writing to ask you to make a donation to help support the work of a new labor rights organization based in southern China, called the China Labor Support Network (CLSN). This group was recently founded by Juliana So, a longtime workers’ rights advocate whom many of you met in November 2003 at the APHA Annual Meeting in San Francisco.

The China Labor Support Network is establishing a workers’ support center in China’s Pearl River Delta, where there are more than 40 million migrant workers employed by transnational corporations in huge factories. The Network will focus on three key areas: 1) designing and conducting training for women organizers on occupational health and safety and participatory training techniques; 2) promoting occupational health and safety through delivery of awareness trainings to workers and establishment of an occupational health resource library; and 3) facilitating ongoing support groups for workers who have been seriously injured on the job and/or disabled by occupational disease.

The work of the China Labor Support Network is invaluable. Many young workers in southern China factories have lost fingers or limbs as the result of serious industrial accidents. Others have developed occupational diseases as a result of exposure to chemicals like benzene and toluene. Establishing an organization that will offer practical support and services for workers who are injured, as well as conducting prevention training, is critical at this time of rapid factory expansion in China.

Juliana So has already raised “seed money” that has allowed her to begin the work of the new organization. She has established a governing board of occupational health educators and others who will oversee the fundraising and operation of the project. She now needs additional funds to recruit and hire organizing staff and build the resources of the organization.

Juliana previously worked for four years with the Chinese Working Women Network, where she coordinated the “Women’s Health Express,” a mobile working women’s service center that traveled throughout the Pearl River Delta providing information and training to young women in factories. Her commitment to occupational health and improving the lives of women workers was recently honored by APHA. She received the International Activist award from the association’s Occupational Health and Safety Section at last fall’s annual conference.

Many of you have generously supported the work of southern China NGO’s in the past. We are asking you again to take out your checkbook and write a check to help expand the work of the China Labor Support Network. Your contribution in the amount of $35, $50, $100 or whatever you can afford, is tax-deductible and will help bring vital information and services to thousands of young working women in China.
Please make your check out to the “New Ways to Work Foundation” (IRS: #94-2835779 and California: #1098796), and mail it to P.O. Box 124, Berkeley, CA 94701-0124. If you can send your donation by May 1st, it will help ensure the summer programs begin as planned.

On behalf of Juliana So, the China Labor Support Network, and the young workers in southern China that they will assist, we thank you in advance for your support.

Sincerely,

Betty Szudy, Labor Occupational Health Program, UC Berkeley
Garrett Brown, Maquiladora Health & Safety Support Network
Pam Tau Lee, Labor Occupational Health Program, UC Berkeley

Return to Top