b

ASSP unveils new membership model and management system

The Society’s membership model has been restructured to add key benefits while a new association management system is simplifying member engagements.




b

Technology is great but…

Human competencies that will always be valued include understanding visual inputs, understanding meaning, critical thinking, communication, problem-solving and empathy and caring for others.




b

Protect workers by instituting safe handling and disposal of hazardous waste

The improper handling of hazardous waste brings many potential dangers, from health hazards to environmental damage, in both the short and long term.




b

Be aware of both DOT and OSHA regulations for forklift operator training

Not only does OSHA have regulations for the forklifts themselves, they also have specific requirements for forklift operators. The Powered Industrial Truck Standard outlines the topics that must be included during training, as well as requirements for refresher trainings.




b

GPS Insight Named 2022 Sustainability Leadership Award Winner by Business Intelligence Group

Companies such as GPS Insight that were bestowed with the Sustainability Leadership Award are those that have made sustainability a central aspect of their operations and goals.




b

The 10 most dangerous jobs in the U.S.

On-the-job deaths have been rising — hitting the highest annual number since 2016. There were 5,190 fatal work injuries recorded in the United States in 2021, an 8.9 percent increase from 4,764 in 2020, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported in December. 




b

Tricky offshore transportation project brings additional hazards

All work performed in the energy sector presents its own challenges and hazards, but those are amplified offshore.




b

Whisleblower probe finds cargo firm retaliated against seaman who reported safety concerns to US Coast Guard

OSHA ordered the Maersk Line to reinstate the seaman and pay $457,759 in back wages, interest, compensatory damages and $250,000 in punitive damages. 




b

Best practices to protect roadside construction workers

Roadside work zones pose extreme risk for the laborers who build and maintain our highways, roads, bridges, tunnels and utilities. Highway maintenance jobs are among the most dangerous in the U.S.




b

Safety on the digital highway: Cybersecurity in freight trucking

As technology plays an ever-greater role in the shipping and logistics industry, bad actors have found new ways to infiltrate every part of a freight company. Here’s how trucking companies can protect themselves against cybercrime.




b

What are the best ways to improve work truck ergonomics?

Truck driving ergonomics is an often overlooked part of vehicle safety. Employee comfort and musculoskeletal health deserve attention, too.




b

Combilift launches Combi Safe-Lift to address forklift overloading

The new device includes an anti-overload sensor and an alarm to alert operators of potential risks.




b

Young people are being overlooked in opioid misuse prevention programs

Researchers at the National Safety Council and the University of Michigan found that about one in 20 adolescents ages 10 to 17 and one in 10 young adults ages 18 to 25 report prescription opioid misuse, based on a new review published in Preventive Medicine. However, effective intervention programs are not in place to address prescription opioid misuse among young people, and NSC and University of Michigan Injury Prevention Center researchers are urgently calling for evidence-based prevention programs to be developed and tested.




b

Mesothelioma linked to asbestos in talcum powder

Thirty-three cases of the asbestos-related lung cancer mesothelioma draw attention to talcum powder as a non-occupational source of exposure to asbestos, according to a study in the January Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine. "Our findings strongly suggest that asbestos exposure through asbestos-contaminated cosmetic talc explains cases once deemed idiopathic or 'spontaneous,'" according to the report.




b

AHA: President’s proposal to eliminate FDA tobacco oversight risks public health

“We strongly oppose the administration’s proposal to create a separate government agency to oversee tobacco products. This unfortunately comes from an administration that has repeatedly placed the needs of the tobacco industry on equal footing with public health.




b

Causes of numbness in the hands

A heart attack may cause tingling and numbness in one hand. If a person is experiencing a suspected heart attack, they or someone near them should seek emergency medical help. Severe blockages in the heart's main blood supply can cause chest pain as well as tingling and numbness down one arm or the other.




b

Mail-order limb, rerouted nerve, and prosthetic hand grips like the real thing

Doctors met a patient at a surgical center outside Boston to invent a new operation, a way to perform arm amputations that might allow patients to move their prosthetic hands more like real ones. The right arm resting on a blue surgical drape before them came from a cadaver; it’s just the limb, ending at the shoulder. It came from the Anatomy Gifts Registry. Devising a new operation is like re-engineering the anatomy.




b

Blood donations critical in fight against cancer

The American Red Cross and the American Cancer Society have partnered to launch a Give Blood to Give Time campaign to raise awareness on how blood donations help patients fighting cancer. Chemotherapy and radiation, used to treat cancer, can damage the body's ability to generate healthy blood cells and cause potentially life-threatening conditions. Blood transfusions from generous donors help to provide patients with critical clotting factors, proteins and antibodies needed to help their bodies fight back.




b

A high-fiber diet may counteract the harmful health effects of pollutants

Research from the University of Kentucky’s Superfund Research Center (UK-SRC) shows that a diet high in fiber could possibly reverse the adverse effects that environmental toxins have on cardiovascular health. The findings are part of UK-SRC’s “Project #1,” which examines how nutrients affect toxicity caused by polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) in vascular tissues.




b

Excess costs for obese employees vary between industries

Although obese employees incur higher direct and indirect costs, the extent of obesity-related costs tends to be lower in some industrial sectors — including healthcare, reports a study in the February Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine. Dominique Lejeune, MSc, of Groupe d'analyse, Ltée, Montréal, QC, Canada, analyzed variations in the relationship between obesity and healthcare and other employee costs.




b

Here’s the latest on the coronavirus outbreak

The respiratory disease caused by a novel (new) coronavirus that was first detected in Wuhan City, Hubei Province, China has now been detected in 32 locations internationally, including cases United States. The virus has been named “SARS-CoV-2” and the disease it causes has been named “coronavirus disease 2019” (abbreviated “COVID-19”).




b

Slow, steady increase in exercise intensity is best for heart health

For most people, the benefits of aerobic exercise far outweigh the risks, however, extreme endurance exercise – such as participation in marathons and triathlons for people who aren’t accustomed to high-intensity exercise – can raise the risk of sudden cardiac arrest, atrial fibrillation (a heart rhythm disorder) or heart attacks, according to a new Scientific Statement published in the Association’s premier journal Circulation.




b

NSC unveils comprehensive plan for presidential candidates to combat opioid misuse

The National Safety Council (NSC), in partnership with more than 50 organizations and companies nationwide, released a comprehensive, inclusive strategy to address opioid misuse that all presidential candidates – regardless of party – should either adopt in full or use to close gaps in existing plans and policies.




b

Health groups join forces to help Americans control blood pressure

In a move toward meeting goals for better cardiovascular health in the United States over the next decade, the American Heart Association (AHA) is joining the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Hypertension Control Roundtable (NHCR)® along with other founding members in a public, private and non-profit collaboration committed to increasing blood pressure control rates to 80% by 2025.




b

Health groups urge Supreme Court to uphold Affordable Care Act

Patient and health advocacy groups representing millions of Americans with pre-existing conditions are applauding the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to hear arguments in the case of Texas v. United States this term. The case is the latest court challenge to the health care law known as the Affordable Care Act (ACA). The groups filed an amicus brief urging the Court’s swift action and citing the detrimental impacts and uncertainty patients would face were the case left at the lower court level.




b

Colorectal cancer burden shifting to younger individuals

The burden of colorectal cancer is swiftly shifting to younger individuals as incidence increases in young adults and declines in older age groups, according to Colorectal Cancer Statistics 2020, a publication of the American Cancer Society. A sign of the shift: the median age of diagnosis has dropped from age 72 in 2001-2002 to age 66 during 2015-2016.




b

For your health & wellness: Sleeping habits

Sleeping well, long enough and having regular bedtimes, in addition to meeting the American Heart Association’s (AHA) Life’s Simple 7 (LS7) guidelines, may help reduce the risk of heart attacks, strokes and other cardiovascular diseases.




b

Hydration benefits: Why water is the essence of good health

The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition recommends drinking up to 3 liters of fluid a day. Water is vital for all cell function. It helps your brain to produce hormones and neurotransmitters, supports the lubrication of joints, keeps your skin cool through sweating or respiration, and your body to excrete waste.




b

Positive & negative workplace safety vibes

How do people get to a point where they fear safety? How can something like a checklist or an SOP or a safety manager create fear? Our body is equipped with automatic protective wiring that reacts to scary stimuli with a fear response.




b

Safety directions need to be explicit

With more experience traveling the real world seeing safety programs in action (or inaction) I realized that words matter. They not only communicate, but they can shape the very approach you take to your safety programming. They can get you stuck or they can liberate your safety culture.




b

Want better safety outcomes? Try servant leadership!

Twenty-five years ago, as a young safety professional, I struggled to find a set of leadership practices I could call my own. In 1996, I wrote about many of the leadership practices I was already using but found more clearly established in Servant Leadership (Sarkus, 1996).




b

Workers help craft the best safety rules

Rules are so easy to make that safety offices are often accused of being a “Rule Mill” because they continuously produce their rule-of-the month. Why do we create so many rules? One particular cog in our mill that causes us to create rules is incidents. When we suffer an incident, we want to throw every tool in the arsenal to keep it from happening again.




b

Don’t judge behavior without knowing the situation it occurs in

Behavior is not right or wrong, good or bad. It just is. It is neutral. Approach behaviors with the dispassionate, objective view of a scientist. Not with emotions.




b

Arc blasts can ruin hearing

Hearing loss isn’t the first injury that comes to mind when an arc fault occurs. The light and heat emitted by the massive electrical explosion – the arc flash – can cause life-threatening and life-altering burns to the skin, compression injuries and loss of limbs if workers are left unprotected.




b

What happens in the boardroom affects the front line

The union steward had just recounted an incident where a supervisor asked one of his workers to step into standing water to work on corroded gauges near the coker. The work needed to be done immediately as it would delay ongoing maintenance on the fractionator to take on different stock feed.




b

Why is there a shortage of skilled labor?

Whether in mining, construction, fabrication and assembly, equipment installation and repair, or other industries, there is a shortage of skilled tradesmen/ technicians to do essential work.




b

5 business lessons learned amid COVID-19

If there’s one thing the global business community has learned from the COVID-19 pandemic that continues to ebb, flow and unfold on the daily, wreaking having on bottom lines in every corner of the world in its wake, it’s the outright imperative for companies to be agile “from top to bottom.”




b

Women in construction should take advantage of available resources

Women have made amazing strides in many fields and industries throughout the 20th and 21st centuries. Unfortunately, there are many others in which it remains a big challenge for a woman to rise to the top — or even, in some cases, to enter the industry at all.




b

Emergency shower booths for decontamination

HEMCO Emergency Showers are fully assembled and ready for installation to water supply and waste systems. This unit is equipped with a pull rod activated shower and push handle eye/face wash for quick rinsing of eyes, face and body. 




b

Two new members join PIP senior management team

PIP’s stellar growth over the last 10 years has positioned itself as a global leader in Safety Hand Protection and places PIP well on its way to becoming a referenced-leader in the Personal Protective Equipment market space.




b

ChillOut products to be exhibited at Safety 2013

Beat the heat and enjoy a ChillOut™ moment. ChillOut evaporative cooling towels are XL and waffled to hold more water for effective, instant cooling that lasts. Portable and easy-to-use,  simply add water.




b

Mirrored safety products for blind spots and problem intersections

Se-Kure Domes and Mirrors is a true Made in America manufacturer of mirrored safety products. Full 360-degree domes from 18” to 60” in diameter, 180 & 90-degree domes are also available.




b

Meet the new Carbonx/Tex Tech team

The CarbonX Team will display and discuss the latest innovations in non-flammable protective apparel at booth #1431 at ASSE’s SAFETY 2014, June 8–10, in Orlando.




b

A developing story: wearable technology for heat stress monitoring & illness prevention

Workers in many fields – construction, landscaping, oil and gas extraction, emergency response, firefighters among others – toil in high heat stress conditions. These tasks can lead to rapid increases in body temperature that raise the risk of heat-related illnesses.




b

Big Pharma company takes on the “new view”

Allergan plc, headquartered in Dublin, Ireland, is a global pharmaceutical company. ISHN asked David Eherts, PhD, CIH, Vice President Global EHS, based in Madison, NJ, to explain how the company is implementing the “New View” of safety.




b

Getting there first: Location tags enable fast, urgent response

ISHN recently exchanged an email Q&A with Amanda Alexander, global product manager for Emerson’s Location Awareness System.




b

Mobile app identifies safety, work at height, weather exposure risks

Responses provided by Carol Hanover, Field Director, Risk Control, Travelers




b

Globe and Mail highlights Blackline Safety’s G7 wearable as a winning product, propelling Canada’s top growing companies

The G7 connected wearable from Blackline Safety (TSX.V: BLN) was one of five products highlighted by the Globe and Mail in their new Report on Business ranking of Canada’s Top Growing companies. Having earned position No. 231 on the ranking, Blackline achieved a three-year revenue growth of 145%.




b

Embattled Johnson & Johnson recalls some of its baby powder after the FDA finds asbestos

Tainted love: Johnson & Johnson recalled 33,000 bottles of baby powder after the Food and Drug Administration found asbestos in one container, The New York Times reports. The company, which once marketed its baby, body, and wellness products as being “for all you love,” has long denied that its talc-based products ever contained cancer-causing asbestos, but it faces more than 15,000 lawsuits from customers who say their products caused them to develop ovarian cancer or mesothelioma, a rare cancer linked to asbestos.




b

Wearable health monitoring

Back in 2015 I had a widow-maker heart attack. That near-death event focused attention on my heart health, particularly when I push to physical extremes during mountain backpacking.