Title: Chair's Message

Author:

Section/SPIG: Occupational Health and Safety

Issue Date:

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Section Web Site: <http://staff.washington.edu/oshalert/>

Leadership and Committee Chair List can be found at: <http://staff.washington.edu/oshalert/leadership.htm>


As I began to think about this column I checked Section member Jordan Barab’s Confined Space Weblog as I do every couple of days (<http://spewingforth.blogspot.com/>). Now I’m brimming over with ideas to share. However, before stealing from Jordan, there is some Section news that is not scandalous enough for Confined Space.

Section Update

Program planning for New Orleans is well under way. Abstracts for presentations were due on Feb. 11, however, if you have a great idea and missed the deadline, I encourage you to discuss your thoughts with Program Chair Janie Gittleman at(301) 578-8500 or <jgittleman@cpwr.com>. There may be a spot we can still fill.

Several leadership positions in our Section are up for election, with nominations due no later than Feb. 28. This year we are electing the Section Chair and Secretary for one-year terms in 2007 and two Section Councilors and one Governing Councilor for two-year terms starting in 2006. If you want to nominate a friend or colleague or even yourself for any of these spots, contact Nominations Chair John Morawetz at (513)621-8882 or <jmorawetz@icwu.org>.

For those who follow APHA politics closely, you will notice that two of our four Section representatives to the Governing Council end their terms this year, but we only get to elect one replacement for a new term. The reason for this loss is that representation is based on the size of our Section, and we have lost members over the past couple of years. A decrease from 873 in 2003 to 821 in 2004 resulted in a reconfiguration of the number of GC seats from four to three. The current count is even less (about 775); however, if we regain a modest number of members (about 65 more) by the official annual count on August 31, we will again be entitled to the four GC representatives we have enjoyed for several years. This is important because it is the GC that elects the APHA President and Executive Board members and adopts APHA policies and positions. Please talk to your friends and colleagues about the value of APHA membership in general and the OHS Section specifically.

There have been some exciting new developments in the area of international health. Garrett Brown and Tom O’Connor, co-chairs of our International Committee, have been working with representatives of several other APHA sections to get APHA more actively involved with issues of trade policy and health. The general concern is that public health interests have been consistently underrepresented in international trade negotiations.

One particular concern for our Section is that without provisions explicitly protecting worker safety and health across international boundaries, international trade agreements will “harmonize” conditions downward instead of upward. And without engagement and pressure from organizations like APHA, these explicit protections will never happen. With the support of APHA Executive Director Georges Benjamin, a new working group on trade and health has been established. Look for possible action on three proposals this working group has made to the Executive Board: 1) A plenary session in New Orleans on the "Public Health Impacts of Trade Treaties," including a speaker on occupational health impacts; 2) Joint scientific sessions on specific aspects on trade impacts on public health; 3) A meeting open to all APHA members interested in organizing within APHA, reaching out to other health organizations, public education and advocacy.

I am very happy that Sarah Tran, one of last year’s student scholarship recipients, has agreed to be the OHS Section’s official liaison to the APHA Student Assembly. If you have ideas about ways to increase student involvement in or impact on APHA, please contact Sarah at (408) 515-0345 or <sikola57@hotmail.com>.

APHA often seems to exist as an organization whose sole purpose is to convene an Annual Meeting. However, the organization adopts policies which provide the authority for the Officers, the Executive Board and the Sections to engage year round in the public process of public health. The OHS Section has always been full of concerned activists who have presented APHA positions and policies on workplace safety and health by public speaking, writing letters, testifying before Congress or lobbying their Congressional representatives. I am happy to say that as Section Chair I could not stop this activism even if I tried. However, much of what we do comes about through last-second scrambling because we have not had effective communication and organization between annual meetings. One recent big step forward has been our use of e-mail and the listserv, actively and effectively managed by Mary Miller (360-902-6041 or <marymiller@inwa.net>). In addition, this year we have added a new tool for communication, planning and coordination – bimonthly leadership conference calls for all elected Section representatives, many key committee chairs and others involved in special issues. I am optimistic that these regular calls will help us to become more effective participants in the public process for worker safety and health protection.

National Update

Here are just a few of the things to keep an eye on.

First, and perhaps most important, the Occupatoinal Safety and Health Administration is now in the hands of the most partisan (and extreme) political operative ever appointed as assistant secretary of labor. While retiring Assistant Secretary John Henshaw leaves a do-nothing legacy (if you don’t count the hundreds of “we all love each other” partnerships and alliances between OSHA and the business community), incoming Assistant Secretary Jonathan Snare arrives with a reputation for conservative action. Most notably as general counsel to the Texas Republican Party and to the Texas Senate Redistricting Committee he was a key player in Tom Delay's (and Enron’s) plan to swing legislative district boundaries to favor Republican loyalists and to disenfranchise Democratic voters. He also was the lobbyist for Metabolife, manufacturers of the diet pill ephedra until it was banned by the FDA in 2003.

With John Henshaw the big concern was that he would delay or halt important initiatives like the tuberculosis rule, the chromate rule or the requirement that employers pay for workers’ personal protective equipment. With Jonathan Snare the new danger is that he will actively attempt to dismantle our 35-year framework of worker safety and health protections by working with Congress to change OSHA’s statutory authority in fundamental ways. This bears close watching – and probably more.

Meanwhile, at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health things do not look a lot better, notwithstanding the fact that the Institute is directed by an occupational health professional, John Howard, who does know and care about workplace safety and health issues. Last year Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Julie Gerberding effectively demoted NIOSH within the CDC structure. As part of CDC’s “Futures Initiative,” the NIOSH director would no longer report directly to the director of CDC, and significant autonomy for budget and public affairs would be stripped away from NIOSH. There was a tremendous response in opposition to these actions from the occupational safety and health community, with many members of our Section signing a letter of protest. At last year’s Annual Meeting, the APHA Governing Council adopted a late breaker policy supporting NIOSH and recommending that the NIOSH director continue to report directly to the director of CDC and that CDC keep NIOSH's budget as a separate line item and make no changes in the agency's operating procedures. Probably more importantly, in its report accompanying last year’s appropriations bill, the U.S. Congress strongly advised Gerberding to reverse these actions.

After many weeks of silence following this congressional report, Gerberding has recently written a letter to Sen. Patty Murray stating: "We plan to adhere to the Congressional language and maintain the status quo in relationship to NIOSH, more specifically, making no changes to NIOSH's current operating procedures and organizational structure and ensuring that no funds or personnel are transferred from NIOSH to other components of CDC by means other than traditional reprogramming of funds. NIOSH will not be included in any organizational changes as the result of the Futures Initiative process at CDC."

This is certainly a very positive development, one that we and other friends of NIOSH can share some credit for. However, there is no indication that Gerberding means this as any more than a paper response to Congressional pressure. All the signals we’ve been getting about the way NIOSH is being treated within CDC indicate that NIOSH is being effectively cut out of the important budget and policy loops and that worker health is being devalued in many ways. We need to keep watching and working on this one.

Here’s another signal about the way CDC is devaluing workplace safety and health, as reported in a new Weblog run anonymously by a safety and health professional calling himself (or herself) Brooklyn Dodger: “BrooklynDodger just received a glossy 2005 calendar from CDC, with a letter signed by Julie Gerberding. She wrote: ‘I hope you will take a few moments to browse through the calendar and gain some insights into our work.’ The Dodger leafed through the pictures twice, to make sure not to miss anything. Opposite each month there was a glossy picture and some large text words, but there was no glossy picture related to the occupational environment. While March was cited as "Workplace Eye Health and Safety Month," April's observances did not include Worker Memorial Day.” By the way, take a look at this Weblog at<http://brooklyndodger1.blogspot.com/> and see if you can guess the identity of Brooklyn Dodger.

(Here’s another commentary on our priorities…when you type in "NIOSH appropriation" for a Google search, you get a response asking "Did you mean NIH appropriation?")

As reported by the Union of Concerned Scientists, we have been experiencing an unprecedented assault on scientific integrity in policy making from political litmus tests for federal scientific advisory committees to widespread interference with the ability of federal agency scientists to express their conclusions openly. More than 6,000 scientists, including 48 Nobel laureates, 62 National Medal of Science recipients, and 127 members of the National Academy of Sciences have signed a statement of concern. You can do the same, if you haven’t already, by going to <http://www.ucsusa.org/>.

Finally, it is worth reminding ourselves as often as we can of the fundamental reason for our Section’s 90-year history – workers continue to be killed and become injured and sick for entirely predictable and preventable reasons. Go to the Confined Spaces site to read the personal stories in the Weekly Toll. It will keep you focused and energized.

CHAIR
Michael Silverstein, MD
Clinical Professor
University of Washington School of Public Health and Community Medicine
Department of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences
Campus Box 357234
Seattle, WA 98195-7234
masilver@u.washington.edu
Phone: (206) 897-1652 Fax: (206) 616-0477