Worker safety

The United Steelworkers union on Tuesday demanded immediate screening for lung cancer in the wake of a massive study that found CT scans of heavy smokers resulted in 20 percent fewer deaths than standard chest X-ray screening.

"We are now presented with an enormous opportunity to save workers from dying from lung cancer," USW International President Leo Gerard said in a statement. "Millions of workers have been exposed to asbestos, silica, chromium, arsenic, beryllium, cadmium, nickel and combustion products — and all of these exposures are firmly established as causes of human lung cancer.

"Union health and safety leaders and others need to meet in the very near future in Washington DC to devise a strategy for assuring that high risk workers are among the first to obtain the benefits of this new screening method," Gerard added.

The eight-year trial by the National Cancer Institute involved more than 53,000 current and former heavy smokers. Groups such as the American Cancer Society and the United States Preventive Services Task Force have yet to release screening recommendations because the data have yet to be more fully analyzed.

The New Jersey Democrat wants the smokeless tobacco banned in the dugout and on the field during the series.

The Obama administration on Thursday proposed to halve the legal limit for miners' exposure to coal dust. 

The move is designed to reduce cases of black lung disease, a deadly condition caused by coal dust and other particles found in coal mines. The disease has killed more than 10,000 miners in the last decade alone — and those numbers are on the rise.

The administration's proposal would cut the permissible exposure limit (PEL) for coal dust from 2 milligrams of dust per cubic meter of air — a standard that's been in place since 1972 — to 1 mg/m3. 

The new standard would be phased in, with the threshold dropping to 1.7 mg/m3 six months after the final rule is issued; to 1.5 mg/m3 after a year; and to 1 mg/m3 after two years.

The proposal is based largely on findings from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), which issued a comprehensive black lung report in 1995 that recommended lowering the PEL to 1 mg/m3. 

Administration officials said Thursday the new rules will go a long way toward policymakers' goal of eliminating the disease altogether. 

"It would bring us many steps closer to overhauling an outdated program that has failed to adequately protect miners from breathing unhealthy levels of coal mine dust and achieving the intent of Congress to eliminate black lung disease,” Joseph A. Main, head of the Mine Safety and Health Administration, said in a statement.

Still, NIOSH has warned that cutting the PEL in half won't eliminate black lung altogether. 

"Even at the 1 mg/m3 coal mine dust exposure limit," NIOSH said in August, "some occupational effect on ventilatory function is expected."

The public will have 60 days to comment on the proposal after it's published Oct. 19 in the Federal Register. 

A Senate Democratic leadership aide cast doubt on the likelihood that it would be on the list of about 20 bills in the lame-duck session.

The Obama administration on Thursday will propose new rules designed to eliminate black lung, a scourge affecting the nation's miners.

The disease, more technically known as coal worker's pneumoconiosis ("dusty lung"), is caused by inhaling coal dust over long periods of time. 

The big question about Thursday's announcement: Will the agency propose to reduce workers' permissible exposure limit (PEL) to coal dust? Or will it simply take steps to limit miners' exposure to the dust?

The difference is nuanced but significant. 

The mining industry has argued the current PEL — which, since 1972, has been set at 2 milligrams of dust per cubic meter of air over an eight-hour shift — is appropriate, but just not very well enforced. In their version of the tale, any occurrence of black lung is the result of companies simply not complying with the current limits.

More than 10,000 miners have died from the disease in the past 10 years.

Many health and mine-safety experts, however, tell a different story. They say the current PEL is too high and doesn't go far enough to protect the nation's miners. If the Labor Department simply takes steps to enforce the PEL without lowering it, they warn, black lung will remain an enormous problem.

"Even if every single company were complying with the standard, you would still have the disease," Celeste Monforton, a former mine-safety official in the Labor Department who's now a public health professor at George Washington University, said Wednesday. "The science tells us that 2 [mg/m3] is not protective."

Bolstering that argument, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) issued a report 15 years ago that found occurrences of black lung in miners exposed to lesser levels of coal dust.

NIOSH recommended the PEL be reduced to 1 mg/m3 over a 10-hour shift. Even at that lower level, the agency warned in a more recent report, some miners would get black lung.

"Even at the 1 mg/m3 coal mine dust exposure limit recommended by the CCD, some occupational effect on ventilatory function is expected," NIOSH said.

Faced with opposition from the coal industry — not to mention the powerful lawmakers of coal country — the proposal was never adopted.

Meanwhile, the cases of black lung in America are on the rise. Last December, NIOSH reported that about 9 percent of miners with at least 25 years experience in the mines tested positive for black lung between 2005 and 2006 — more than double the 4-percent rate of a decade earlier. 

Monforton said it remains unclear why the problem seems to be getting worse. It could be that more miners are being diagnosed simply because more miners are being screened for the disease, she said. Or it might be that more powerful mining equipment is kicking up more coal dust underground; or more miners are working longer shifts; or the coal mines contain more silica — a substance found in quartz that's even more harmful to lungs than coal dust — than previously thought. 

"All the more reason," Monforton said, "to adopt new standards based on science."

We'll know tomorrow if the administration takes that advice.

Pressure is growing for the White House to reverse the military policy that prohibits the president from sending condolence letters to family members of military personnel who have committed suicide. 

The American Psychiatric Association on Tuesday joined Mental Health America and the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention in asking for a reversal of the policy. These last two are gathering signatures on petitions in an attempt to overturn the policy.

Service members who commit suicide do receive full military honors.

"The contributions of these men and women to their country are not less for having suffered a mental illness," APA President Carol Bernstein said in a statement. "A reversal of this policy ... will not only help to honor the contributions and lives of the service men and women, but will also send a message that discriminating against those with mental illness is not acceptable."

The issue is gaining prominence as the Department of Defense copes with a growing trend in suicides. This year is on track to surpass last year's record of 162 suicides.

The Army says repeated deployments aren't solely to blame, according to Sunday's New York Times, since only about 80 percent of those who commit suicide have been deployed once or never. One growing problem is that a military stretched thin by years of wars is attracting more people who are prone to risky behaviors and suicide.

Federal mine inspectors last week temporarily closed 11 sections of a Massey-owned West Virginia coal mine after discovering serious safety violations there, the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) announced this week.

In surprise inspections conducted at the end of September, mine-safety officials found operators at Massey's Seng Creek Powellton mine were cutting further into the coal seam than was legally permissible.

MSHA inspectors also discovered line curtains — plastic sheets that funnel ventilated air to prevent coal dust and methane gas from accumulating — had been rolled up so they wouldn't impede heavy equipment and slow down the production of coal. 

In one section, MSHA said, "suspended coal dust was so thick it was difficult to determine the proximity of the massive continuous mining machine."

Joseph Main, who heads MSHA, said the findings "only reinforce the need for new legislation to halt these kinds of practices."

Democrats in both chambers of Congress are pushing legislation to bolster the protections for the nation's miners, but the mining industry opposes the changes, saying they would put burdensome new requirements on mining companies at the expense of jobs and the economy.

In that vein, Don Blankenship, Massey's pugnacious CEO, last month blamed stricter MSHA oversight since the UBB blast for lower-than-expected quarterly earnings. 

"Increasingly stringent enforcement actions by MSHA across our operations and throughout the Central Appalachian region have resulted in lost shifts and loss of productivity,” he said in a statement. 

Blankenship, who has also blamed MSHA for the UBB blast, has repeatedly said Massey takes safety seriously and can police itself to ensure miner protection.

In response to last week's findings at Seng Creek, however, the company is singing an entirely different tune. 

"This situation was very frustrating and totally unacceptable," Massey said in a statement. "We appreciate MSHA’s blitz for uncovering conduct that we did not uncover ourselves. We welcome any effort — whether by MSHA, the state or Massey — that uncovers such conduct."

Massey said the supervisor involved had been instructed differently but simply ignored the orders. He has since been fired, Massey said.

A number of former Massy miners have testified, however, that practices like yanking down the line curtains were standard in Massey mines.

"When we got to a section to mine coal, they’d tear down the ventilation curtain," former Massey miner Jeff Harris told lawmakers in April. "The air was so thick you could hardly see in front of you. When an MSHA inspector came to the section, we’d hang the curtain, but as soon as the inspector left, the curtain came down again."

The surprise inspections roughly coincided with the six-month anniversary of the deadly explosion at the Upper Big Branch mine, another Massey-owned operation where 29 miners were killed in April. 

Main said the Seng Creek inspections are clear evidence Massey hasn't taken any lessons from the disaster. 

"Rather than learn from this tragedy, there are mine operators that continue the 'catch me if you can' tactics, ignoring basic mining laws, and placing their workers at great risk of injury, illness and mine explosions," Main said. "They know that MSHA cannot be at the mines all the time, and miners pay the ultimate price." 

A leading voice for the mining lobby predicted partisan gridlock all but ensures that Congress won't pass new miner protections anytime soon.

A top Senate Democrat said Wednesday that, if Congress fails to pass mine safety legislation in 2010, it's not likely to happen for years.

Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) said mine safety reform "has less of a chance" next year because "there’s going to be even more of the ideology factor plus the party discipline factor."

Democrats in both chambers are pushing bills to provide greater protections for the nation's miners — a response to April's deadly coal mining blast in southern West Virginia. But the debate has been marred by partisan sniping over the scope of the reforms, with Democrats urging strict new guidelines and Republicans advocating more lenience for fear of hobbling the industry. 

Indeed, the House bill passed through the Education and Labor Committee in July without a single GOP vote. And Tuesday, Rockefeller's stab at passing the Senate version unanimously didn't make it past the figure of Sen. Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.), who objected on the grounds that it's a strictly partisan bill. 

Enzi said the staffs for the two sides had worked "through the entire August recess."

"Numerous meetings," he said. "Making great progress." But then the Democrats called off the talks, Enzi said Tuesday justifying his objection.

"If the majority really wanted to pass a bill on this issue then they would have continued with those bipartisan negotiations."

Rockefeller on Wednesday said he knew Enzi would object. "In fact I talked to Enzi about it a week to 10 days before I did it," he said.

But he took issue with Enzi's claim that the Democrats had abandoned the bipartisan negotiations. 

"We never did that," Rockefeller said, adding that the last meeting involving either members or staff occurred before the August break. 

Rockefeller said the last member-level discussion — including himself, Enzi, Sen. Carte Goodwin (D-W.Va.), Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), Sen Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.) and others — "was a very good meeting." But then the lawmakers turned the issue over to their staffs in August "and just nothing happened," he said.

The West Virginia Democrat also said Tuesday's effort to pass the bill, though it failed, nonetheless sends an important message.  

"It lays down what some of us think mine safety oughta be," he said. "It didn't have a legislative effect but it had a psychological effect. And from my point of view, it was a statement to the miners that I represent that I care that I want good tough legislation."

Talks on the issue will resume "soon," Rockefeller added, without lending specifics. 

"The process," he said, "works slowly."

The 9/11 healthcare bill proposed by House Republicans on Wednesday broke two central tenets of the party's new "Pledge to America," a top Democrat is charging.

Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) noted that the GOP's 9/11 proposal — introduced Wednesday as a last-ditch effort to kill the Democrats' version of the bill — not only didn't allow lawmakers three days to read the bill, but also failed to cite its constitutional reason for being. 

"Today [Republicans] made public a 21-page motion to recommit to the 9/11 Health and Compensation Act less than an hour before a vote, and it contains no reference to Constitutional authority," Van Hollen, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said in a statement. 

"This is just more of the same from Washington Republicans, who are apparently more concerned with scoring partisan political points than keeping their promises to the American people." 

The GOP's "Pledge" said: "We will require that every bill contain a citation of Constitutional authority. We will give all Representatives and citizens at least three days to read the bill before a vote.” 

The Democrats' 9/11 bill, which passed easily on Wednesday 268 to 160, would create a fund to pay the healthcare costs for rescue workers sickened by the 9/11 attacks on New York. Just before the scheduled vote, GOP leaders offered a scaled back proposal that would cover the tab by cutting provisions of the new healthcare reform law.

The Republicans' version failed 185 to 244, mostly along party lines.