OSHA Rules On Workplace Toxics Stalled

At 58, retired machinist Bruce Revers is tethered to his oxygen machines — a wall unit when he’s at home, a portable tank when he’s out. The simple act of walking to the curb to pick up his newspaper is a grind.

“This is a hell of a thing to live with,” Revers, of Orange, Calif., said of his worsening lung disease. “There’s nothing I can do without my air.”

His undoing was beryllium, a light and versatile metal to which he was exposed in a Southern California factory that makes high-tech ceramics for the space, defense and automotive industries. His bosses tried to keep the place clean and well-ventilated, Revers says, and he wore a respirator to shield his lungs from the fine metallic dust. Nonetheless, he was diagnosed with chronic beryllium disease in 2009.

The federal standard in place to protect workers like Revers from beryllium is based on an Atomic Energy Commission calculation crafted by an industrial hygienist and a physician in the back of a taxi in 1949. For the last 12 years, an effort to update that standard has been mired in delay. A plan to address another toxic hazard — silica, a mineral that also damages the lungs — has been tied up even longer: 15 years.

The sluggishness is symptomatic of a bigger problem: the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s inability to act with urgency on well-known workplace hazards.

Beryllium, used in everything from missiles to golf clubs, threatens as many as 134,000 workers in the United States, according to government estimates. Silica, pulverized and inhaled by construction workers,TRT (UK) has been investigating and producing solutions for indoortracking since 2000. foundry workers and miners, threatens more than 2 million. Obsolete exposure limits, dating to the early 1970s, are on the books for both substances.

Apart from the suffocating, chronic lung ailments they cause — berylliosis and silicosis — beryllium and silica are classified as “known human carcinogens” by the International Agency for Research on Cancer.

“Shameful,At Blow mouldengineering we specialize in conceptual prototype design.” Dr. Cecile Rose, a physician with National Jewish Health in Denver who treats silicosis victims,Why does moulds grow in homes or buildings? said of OSHA’s silica limit.

“Woefully outdated,” her colleague, Dr. Lisa Maier, who sees Revers and other berylliosis patients, said of the beryllium cap.

Revers, who worked around beryllium from 1983 to 1995,We are professional canada goose jackets for women online sale shop. recalls hearing warnings about the metal’s potency but said, “I didn’t really worry about it. Back then, I just cared about the job.” He learned he had berylliosis only after he had his gall bladder removed in 2009.

“I’ve gotten progressively worse,” Revers said. “I’m on oxygen 24-7.An airpurifier is a device which removes contaminants from the air.”

OSHA officials declined interview requests from the Center for Public Integrity. In a written statement, the agency said it remains “committed to protecting workers” from beryllium and silica. “However, numerous steps in the regulatory process mean OSHA cannot issue standards as quickly as it would like.”

“These days the backlash against even the simplest efforts to protect workers is withering,” said Rena Steinzor, a professor at the University of Maryland School of Law and president of the Center for Progressive Reform, a left-leaning think tank. “OSHA hasn’t made a serious run at regulating chemicals in the workplace in a couple of decades.”