OSHA Pressures Scientist To Weaken Asbestos Warning

[Omaha Steve]

http://spewingforth.blogspot.com/2006/11/osha-pressures-scientist-to-weaken.html

OSHA Pressures Scientist To Weaken Asbestos Warning

An estimated 60,000 workers die every year of occupationally-related disease, many of which are due to exposure to asbestos. And if the asbestos industry and its friends in government get their way, the bodies will keep piling up.

Baltimore Sun journalist Andrew Schneider has uncovered evidence that OSHA has threatened to fire an agency scientist for not softening warnings to auto mechinics about the dangers of cancer-causing asbestos in brake linings.



The problem of asbestos in brake linings is so little known that when Washington Senator Patty Murray asked OSHA nominee Ed Foulke at his confirmation hearing last January whether he thought it would be a good idea to ban asbestos, Foulke replied that he wasn't aware that the cancer-causing product was used anymore in the United States. Murray sharply corrected him, listing automobile brake pads as one of the many products in which asbestos can still be found.

Foulke could probably take some comfort in knowing that most Americans are just as ignorant about the hazards of asbestos-containing brake linings as he is. But finally last July, after six years or pressure by public health and labor activists, as well as Senator Murray, OSHA finally issued a bulletin on Asbestos-Automotive Brake and Clutch Repair Work. All's well that ends well? Not quite.

Three weeks after the bulletin was issued, former OSHA head John Henshaw called on the agency to make changes in its warnings, according to documents obtained by the Baltimore Sun. The order went out through OSHA, according to Schneider:

But Ira Wainless, an OSHA scientist who wrote the advisory bulletin about asbestos in brakes, refused, according to agency documents. Wainless cited dozens of studies, including work at his own agency, to show that his presentation of the medical risk to mechanics was solid.

Last week, David Ippolito, an official with OSHA's Directorate of Science, Technology and Medicine, told Wainless that he would be suspended without pay for 10 days if the changes weren't made, according to documents.

Wainless refused again, and the advisory bulletin remains online.

According to Ed Stern of Local 12 of the American Federation of Government Employees

OSHA wants the July 26 advisory to include studies, financed by the auto industry, that say that asbestos in brakes does not harm mechanics.

[MadMaddie]

1. What the hell....are we sliding back in time?

This has to be another * appointee...someone from the industry....unbelievable...:wtf:

[Viva_La_Revolution]

2. No way! I just spent the day peeling a popcorn ceiling...

(ya know, that nasty spray on stuff from the 70's)

We tested it first, very low asbestos levels, and we wetted it down... but believe me, I wore a mask through the whole process, and washed my clothes as soon as I walked in the door.


It's not something you want to mess around with, let alone be exposed to every day.


:mad:

[OzarkDem]

3. Declaring a retreat in the war against cancer

What the hell. Why not wish that these cretins be struck with mesothelioma themselves.

American Cancer Society, where are you?


There's no room left for compassion when it comes to this kind of repulsive public health policy.