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Friday Blog Roundup October 31, 2008 in Blog roundup | by Liz Borkowski | No comments On Monday, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in Wyeth v. truth about enzyte Levine, the case that will decide whether FDA approval shields drug manufacturers from liability claims under state laws. (Read more about this idea of preemption here.) Bloggers have a lot to say about the case and this concept of preemption: Also, ahead of Tuesday’s election, Sara Barz at Gristmill provides a guide to environmental ballot measures from several states, while Cristina Page at RH Reality Check highlights six Congressional races where birth control is a campaign issue. (Yes, birth control is apparently somehow still controversial in the U.S. in the 21st century). Elsewhere: Read the rest of this entry » October 30, 2008 in Environmental Health | by The Pump Handle | No comments By Sarah Vogel The Science Board Subcommittee on Food Contact Applications of BPA (Bisphenol A), the expert panel assigned to evaluate the FDA’s Draft Assessment on BPA, released a report Wednesday, October 29, 2008, highlighting a number of severe limitations of the agency’s assessment. Although judiciously written, the Subcommittee unequivocally gave the agency failing marks on the scientific quality and rigor of its recent assessment. The Subcommittee’s evaluation of what was by all accounts a poorly prepared report deserves considerable praise and attention. Without going through the report point-by-point, let’s focus on the two fundamental parts of the safety assessment: the exposure assessment and the criteria used to assess studies of BPA. Read the rest of this entry » October 29, 2008 in Confined Space @ TPH, Occupational Health & Safety | by Liz Borkowski | 2 comments With concerns growing about a nursing shortage, hospitals are looking at ways to improve retention of the nurses they have on staff. Susan Meyers at Nurse.com (via RWJF) reports on an initiative at Los Angeles’s Cedars-Sinai Hospital to improve physician-nurse communication in order to boost morale: With nearly a nine-year jump on the [MD-RN Collaborative], Cedars-Sinai has seen many positive benefits stem from the collaborative, including safer and more efficient care, a greater focus on patient-centered care, increased nurse retention, improved satisfaction among physicians, nurses and patients, and a more pleasant work environment, says Chris Ng, MD, physician co-chairman of the collaborative. “According to senior physicians, the interaction between doctors and nurses is like night and day,” Ng says. “The nurses are now treated with respect and as equal partners in care, and this translates into better quality of care.” Meanwhile, a new GAO report on nursing at the Veterans Administration (via the WSJ Health Blog) cites mundane work (including answering phones and housekeeping duties) and insufficiently flexible schedules as problems that reduce nurses’ morale and impede recruitment and retention. In other news: Read the rest of this entry » October 28, 2008 in Environmental Health, Occupational Health & Safety | by Liz Borkowski | No comments The Rotterdam Convention is an agreement addressing international movement of hazardous substances, but of course there’s a great deal of debate about what qualifies as a hazardous substance. As convention parties met this week, several developing nations spoke up against adding asbestos to this list – and, according to one Canadian MP who attended the meeting as an observer, they did so at Canada’s behest. For CanWest News Service, Katie Daubs reports: Read the rest of this entry » October 28, 2008 in Confined Space @ TPH, Occupational Health & Safety | by The Pump Handle | No comments The American Public Health Association is holding its annual meeting this week in San Diego (check out their conference blog here), and members of the occupational health section will be gathering today to congratulate the winners of this year’s awards. (Read about last year’s awards here.) Here are some of the outstanding individuals who are working tirelessly for safe, healthy workplaces: Read the rest of this entry » October 27, 2008 in Health | by revere | No comments by revere, cross-posted at Effect Measure Earaches, respiratory infections and diarrhea are the bane of existence for young parents. All are potentially the result of contagious agents. The most common agent for diarrhea in infants and children is rotavirus, a double-stranded DNA virus, that CDC estimates causes 400,000 doctor visits, 200,000 emergency room visits and 55.000 to 70,000 hospitalizations each year in the under 5 year old age group. Infection produces significant immunity, and while there are seven different serotypes (A through G), 90% of infections are serotype A. In addition to diarrhea, rotavirus infections cause nausea, vomiting and fever, often with dehydration that can be fatal to an infant. By the time a child turns five, he or she is likely to have had a rotavirus infection. So this virus causes a lot of sickness and even more dollars. A recent estimate is that each hospitalization costs about $3600. If rotavirus infection could be prevented by a vaccine it would have a major public health impact. In the 1990s a vaccine to do just that went on the market. It was thought to be safe but soon reports started appearing that it was associated with an increased risk of intestinal obstruction by intussusception, a blockage of the intestinal tract caused by a telescoping of one length of intestinal tract into another. The rotavirus vaccine was taken off the market. In 2006 US FDA approved a new rotavirus vaccine (RotaTeq, marketed by Merck). As with the previous vaccine, clinical trials appeared to show the new vaccine was safe, but those trials are much smaller than the population that eventually winds up getting a vaccine, so relatively rare events like intussusception aren’t picked up. Therefore intensive surveillance for adverse events and particularly for intussusception, was put in place. So far the rate of intussusception after vaccination with the new vaccine is no more than what would be expected if the vaccine were not given, perhaps lower. The surveillance covered a 19 month period after vaccine release during which 9 million doses were distributed. Thus all the evidence suggests the vaccine is indeed safe, but does it work? This week the Infectious Disease Society of America (IDSA) is holding its 48th Annual Meeting in Washington, DC, and among the papers are reports from CDC and Merck on how well RotaTeq is working (hat tip reader stillwagon): Read the rest of this entry » October 27, 2008 in Confined Space @ TPH, Mining, Occupational Health & Safety, Politics, Regulation | by Celeste Monforton | No comments Remember back in early May, when White House Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten sent a memorandum to all agency heads warning them: “to resist the historical tendency of administrations to increase regulatory activity in their final months” and directed, except in extraordinary circumstances, that regulations needed to be proposed by 6/1/08. Well it seems that pretty much everybody in the Administration is ignoring the Bolten memo, with both bad rules (MSHA’s mandatory worker drug-testing proposal) and good ones (OSHA’s crane safety standard). Scholars at NYU’s Institute for Policy Integrity asked the White House’s regulatory czar to explain why she is allowing agencies to ignore the Bolten edict. Read the rest of this entry » October 24, 2008 in Blog roundup | by Liz Borkowski | No comments Once again, bloggers turn their keyboards to the economic crisis: Elsewhere: Read the rest of this entry » October 24, 2008 in Confined Space @ TPH, Occupational Health & Safety | by Liz Borkowski | No comments The UK’s Health and Safety Executive reports that 20 tradesmen die from asbestos-related diseases every week, and that number will likely increase. In an effort to reduce asbestos exposure among plumbers, joiners, electricians, and other maintenance workers, HSE has launched the campaign Asbestos: The Hidden Killer. Campaign materials and activities are designed to alert workers to the dangerous effects of asbestos and educate them about where it’s found and how it should be handled. In France, thousands of workers took to the street to protest “Death by Canada” – asbestos-related diseases caused by asbestos produced by Canada and installed in French office and academic buildings. Now, warns Keith Spicer, a former Ottowa Citizen editor now living in Paris, Canada is selling its lethal product to developing countries where worker protection is weak. In other news: |