Photo by Paul Joseph Brown / IW

This is an important story that hasn’t been written before.

Carol Smith, a skilled reporter and gifted writer, has documented something that had been rumored for years to be killing medical professionals, proven in peer-reviewed studies, but ignored by government safety regulators.

Spread over most of the front page of today’s Seattle Times, Smith explained in detail that nurses, pharmacists and others who handle chemo drugs have been getting sick, often dying, from cancers caused by the same chemical cocktails these medical professionals concoct and administer to save the lives of others.

Smith showed irrefutable proof that the government, especially OSHA, knew that the life-saving but highly toxic blends – chemicals chemicals specifically created and blended to kill microbes or tumor cells –were harming those who work in cancer clinics everywhere.

I sent Smith’s stories to friends at the Centers for Disease Control and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. People within both those agencies had fought diligently, but unsuccessfully to get OSHA off its bureaucratic butt and issue the much-needed safeguards for those handling chemo chemicals.

The reaction of some of those who read the stories was the same:  that Smith and Brown had done a great job, accomplishing something that their scientific studies on the danger from chemo hadn’t accomplished because  this investigative story finally put a human face on this hazard and OSHA’s blatant disregard for public health.

I other reason I suggest you check this out is a personal one. This is an important example of how journalists like Smith and her partner, photographer Paul Joseph Brown, continue doing great work after their newspaper (and mine) the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, was killed a year ago. They are part of a small group from the PI who now work – mostly for free or the smallest of a salaries – for a non-profit news-gathering group called Investigate West.

IW is one of several investigatory teams that have surfaced around the country, providing a place for unemployed journalists to continue doing important stories that might not get done by the remaining budget-stricken dailies. Most of these organizations are funded by grants from foundations that care about the future of investigative reporting and donations of local supporters.

Teaming with major newspapers like the Seattle Times provides the exposure many of these stories deserve. This type of collaboration can provide quality and important stories to newspaper readers and acclaim to papers that team up with journalists outside their newsrooms. These partnerships may grow. The fact that  Sheri Fink of ProPublica won the Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting this year in collaboration with The New York Times Magazine might motivate reluctant editors to take chance.

In the spirit of full disclosure, I was lucky enough to have Carol as my partner during the PI’s seemingly endless investigation into the hundreds of deaths and thousands of illnesses inflicted upon the people of Libby, Montana from exposure to asbestos from a nearby vermiculite mine owned by W.R. Grace.

Meanwhile, shipments of thousands of the hearing-annihilating horns are arriving this week at some U.S. ballparks and team stores.

But those planning to blow their hearts out should know about a study published in the South African Medical Journal which predicts Vuvuzela are doing permanent harm to the hearing of players, referees and security forces as well of many of the thousands of spectators crammed into Loftus Versfeld Stadium in Pretoria.

Hearing tests on volunteers done before and after earlier matches have shown measureable hearing losses.  The researchers found the noise in the stadium “reached dangerously high levels,” averaging 131 decibels but up to 144 decibels. At these levels, permanent damage can be done in as little as 15 minutes. The average soccer match runs an hour-and-a-half, they reported.

And remember, there are thousands of people blowing their horns during a match so the potential noise dangers are magnified.

However, if the World Cup playoffs were being held in the U.S., federal safety investigators would probably shut down the games or at least ban the horns because the levels far exceed OSHA’s legal limits for sound which specify that workers can be exposed to a maximum permissible exposure of 90 decibels for an eight-hour work day.

“Noise-induced loss of hearing is an irreversible, (nerve damaging) condition that progresses with exposure,” say  audiologists and other safety specialists from the National Institute for Occupational Safety The NIOSH experts explain that this noise-induced loss is caused by damage to nerve cells of the inner ear (cochlea) and, unlike some conductive hearing disorders, cannot be treated medically.
So to be safe. bring you own ear plugs when you head for the baseball game this week.  Fans are already trying to sneak the hearing-killing horns into some ballparks.

I called the Seattle Mariners team stores and was told that they are getting “an increasing number” of questions on whether the horns are in stock and available in Mariners colors.  The answer is no because the stadium bans the use of all horns.

However, The Palm Beach Post reports that the Florida Marlins will be giving out horns similar to vuvuzelas to the first 15,000 fans in attendance at Saturday game against the Rays.

The horns are already being sold on the Web in “any team color” for about $8 each and some Chinese factories are cranking out 20,000 or more a day anticipating that the irritating noisemaker will be sought by baseball, soccer and football zealots worldwide.

Let’s hope they never find their way to a basketball game.

If you want more details on the hearing damage and learn how events such as car races and monster-truck rallies stack up, check out what I wrote for AOL News this morning.

In the Federal Register, the agency said that it will no longer permit the obstruction of safety evaluations by allowing firms to hide behind age-old claims of business secrecy.

EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, had told Congress earlier this year that the heavily lobbied “confidential business information” protection was keeping the agency’s risk assessors from obtaining vital data on health and safety concerns of chemical substances awaiting approval. Thousands of chemicals were not properly evaluated because of the withheld information, she told lawmakers.

This action has real-life implications.

Photo from Green Earth Technologies

Earlier today AOL News published a long story on scientists in the U.S., Canada, South America and elsewhere pleading with the EPA not to approve the use of an oil dispersant that contains unidentified and possibly untested nanoparticles.

The company, Green Earth Technologies, insisting its product is safe for use in the Gulf, says that federal law allows it to conceal information on the composition of the nano-dispersant and precisely what nanoparticles it contains because it’s confidential business information.

That protection may no longer exist, at least within the EPA. Other federal safety agencies such as OSHA and the Food and Drug Administration apparently still allow such corporate obfuscation.

Richard Denison, senior scientist for the Environmental Defense Fund, says he rarely gets to use the words “elegant” and “Federal Register notice” in the same sentence, but that’s how he describes the long-sought-after change in how EPA will handle corporate information.

“Yesterday’s notice is the latest in a series of actions the new leadership at EPA has taken to make good on much-neglected aspect of its mission,” wrote Denison.

In announcing the new policy, EPA said it took the action “to promote public understanding of potential risks by providing understandable, accessible, and complete information on potential chemical risks to the broadest audience possible.”

A careful legal interpretation of the long maligned, but vital Toxic Substance Control Act convinced the agency that it could provide more valuable information to the public by identifying data where information may have been claimed and treated as confidential in the past–but is not, and was not, in fact entitled to confidentiality under TSCA.

EPA says it expects to begin reviews of confidentiality claims — both newly submitted and existing claims on August 25, 2010.

Click here for the entire Federal Register report.

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These words did not come from President Obama, but rather were the conclusion of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology and 12 leading civilian experts recruited to examine what the White House-run National Nanotechnology Initiative had accomplished since President Clinton created it a decade ago.

I dutifully reported that incestuous praise today on AOL News. It was only appropriate to give the federal nano gurus equal time, since last month I wrote eight stories on what many public health experts saw as dangerous shortcomings in the government’s programs to identify and regulate the safety of these wondrous atomic concoctions.

Here is a link to what I wrote today and another to the series of nano stories AOL posted last month.

The 71-page report by the scientific advisors said that unless the U.S. doubles the billions it’s spending on nano, China, South Korea and the European Union will wipe out America’s commercial edge, among other things.

Needless to say, the federal nano gang at the White House, NNI and elsewhere in the government is not happy with my reporting. They expressed their displeasure at length today in an Op-ed that AOL eagerly ran.

The White House advisors also shared their annoyance by issuing “talking points” to nano folks – in and out of the government – on how to respond to what I wrote.

Sensitive little group isn’t it?

Prof. Andrew Maynard

Personally, I think the world would be a bit better off if these policy makers focused more on determining whether nanoparticles are harmful or not before they urge everyone to fill the marketplace with them.

And, if all this isn’t enough to bore the hell out of everyone, here are more exciting views on this sparring match from one of the nation’s leading nano-safety proponents – Prof. Andrew Maynard.

No, really. Its official state rock is serpentine which usually contains asbestos, which has killed hundreds of thousands of people.

Late last night, by unanimous vote, the city council of Manhattan Beach passed a resolution asking the state to find a different, non-lethal hunk of rock to memorialize.

Micro-image by EPA

In 1965, serpentine was designated as the state rock of California in order to promote the then-lucrative asbestos mining industry.  The last U.S. asbestos mines – in California and Vermont – were closed in 2002, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

Manhattan Beach Mayor Portia Cohen thanked the council for its vote and added, “It is unthinkable to have serpentine as the State Rock of California when more than 7,000 people in our state alone have died from asbestos since 2007.”

The beach-front community is home to the Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization, a national asbestos education and victim’s rights group. ADAO launched a “Drop the Rock” campaign urges statewide action to remove serpentine as the official rock.

The Manhattan Beach resolution represents the first official request to the California legislature to remove the rock.

Today, asbestos still kills,

Thousands of homes, schools and businesses still have asbestos-wrapped pipes, boilers and furnaces. Millions more have asbestos-contaminated vermiculite insulation in their walls and attics.

And as unbelievable as is sounds, thousands of asbestos-containing products – from toys to building supplies and automotive parts – enter the U.S. marketplace every year.

The lethality of asbestos has been painfully documented for years yet, Congress still lacks the will to legislate an effective ban on the deadly fibers as 40 other industrialized countries have done.

The one hazard that cannot be legislated away is naturally occurring asbestos, outcroppings of which the USGS has mapped throughout the country.

California is plagued by the problem.

The asbestos contained in the serpentine rock can be released when the rock is broken by soil disturbing activities such as mining, construction, and other land grading activities.  Hundreds of new homes, schools and businesses have been built on this fiber-laced land.

“California has the dubious distinction of being the state with the highest recorded number of asbestos-related deaths and the death toll will continue until the United States Congress passes legislation banning asbestos,” said Linda Reinstein, ADAO’s executive director and co-founder.

The disease was first reported in a dozen workers in a pig processing plant in Minnesota and later in 10 other slaughterhouse workers in an Indiana abattoir.

The Centers for Disease Control cautioned more than two dozen other U.S. operations processing porcine brains to stop using compressed air to remove the brain from the skull.

Photo change.org

The plant in southern Minnesota processes about 18,000 pigs a day and has 1,200 workers.

The plants prove the truth of the saying that there is a use for everything on the pig but the oink;  nothing goes to waste in the plants, including ears, entrails and bone.

The workers who were diagnosed with neurological illness all worked in sections of both plants where the pig’s severed heads are processed.

The sick workers – all Latinos and between 28 amd 52 years old – were assigned to the operation that removed the pig’s brains. Unlike almost all the other U.S. plants, the Minnesota and Indiana operations used high-pressure compressed air to remove the tissue.

The CDC’s disease detectives reported in the International Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health that the high-pressure air guns used to remove the brain matter most likely aerosolized the brain material into tiny particles, which the workers inhaled.

Federal investigators said masks and other personal protective equipment were being used.

All of the sick workers showed symptoms that ranged from gradually progressive weakness to acute paralysis. The illnesses were diagnosed as Immune-mediated Polyradiculoneuropathy or IP. This involves the peripheral nervous system, the intricate communications network that transmits information from the brain and spinal cord to other parts of the body.

In IP, many nerves are affected, which can result in severe pain, crippling weakness, numbness, or difficulty controlling specific muscles.

“Basically, we found several IP cases in the Indiana plant with work-related risk factors that were similar to what was observed in the Minnesota plant,” said Lt. Jennifer Adjemian, an epidemiologist with the U.S. Public Health Service and the principle investigator for the study.

“This further supports the theory that this mechanism of brain extraction was leading to the development of IP, a new neurological illness.”

Adjemian said that no new cases have been brought to CDC’s attention since the meat processors ceased using pressurized air guns.

One of the lingering questions is: Were the brains of the pigs diseased?

The swine had passed inspection by the U.S. Department of Agriculture Food Safety and Inspection Service, and the investigation had not identified any food-borne risk to the general population, the investigators said.

Here is a link to the study in IJOEH.

From health-Canada

The group behind the tiny study – Physicians for Social Responsibility – tested the volunteer’s blood and urine for six chemical groups representing 62 chemicals in all.

The biomonitoring targeted Bisphenol A, Mercury, Perfluorinated compounds, Phthalates, Polybrominated diphenyl, ethers and Triclosan. These were selected, the organization said, because they are chemicals that are used in the health care setting and have been associated with endocrine disruptors and certain diseases.

The PSR testing showed that 18 chemicals were detected in every single participant; all 20 had at least five of the six kinds of chemicals for which the group tested, and 13 of the participants had all six. Bisphenol A was found in all. Finally, 13 of the medical professionals had had dimethyl phthalate metabolites.

The organization called for the following actions:

• Take immediate action on the most dangerous chemicals and persistent, bioaccumulative toxic chemicals should be phased out of commerce.

• Hold industry responsible for the safety of their chemicals and products. And, chemical companies should be required to provide full information on the health and environmental impacts of all their chemicals.

• Use the best science to protect all people and vulnerable groups. Chemicals should meet a standard of safety for all people, including children, pregnant women, and workers.

The test subjects came from Alaska, California, Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Oregon and Washington.

It’s not like it’s a secret that factory workers exposed to vapors from chemical butter substitute have contracted the sometimes deadly and rare disorder called popcorn lung.

More than nine years ago, the illness was traced to workers in microwave popcorn plants throughout the Midwest where, eventually, hundreds were diagnosed with the irreversible disease.

Francisco Herrera lost 70 percent of lung use from diacetyl exposure. Photo by A. Schneider

But it wasn’t just popcorn workers.

In 2006, while working at the Baltimore Sun, I wrote about several employees of California flavoring plants that worked with the diacetyl-based concoction and were sickened by the disease. One, Francisco Herrera, a young father, lost 70 percent of his lung capacity and could no longer lift his children.

In other stories that year, I reported on flavoring workers from coast-to-coast diagnosed with the disease, which is called bronchiolitis obliterans, and causes the destruction of the small airways in the lung.

Occupational medicine experts at the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health and California’s health and worker safety agencies responded almost immediately to determine how widespread the diacetyl problem was.  However, in California, their efforts were blocked by the flavoring industry and their powerful lobbyists who claimed all was fine.

It wasn’t.

Finally, this week, California regulators have unveiled a first-in-the-nation proposal to control exposures to the potentially deadly flavorings chemical diacetyl.

The standard, which will be discussed at one last public meeting next month, would apply to all flavor and food manufacturing facilities that use diacetyl and flavorings that contain 1 percent or greater concentration of the chemical.

Companies using diacetly will be required to do at least the following:

• Assess the concentration of airborne diacetyl each employee is exposed to while working.
• Use engineering and work practice controls to reduce diacetyl and ensure that employees wear protective face masks when needed.
• Perform medical surveillance of workers, including health questionnaires and pulmonary function tests.
• Report any “flavor-related” diagnosis of fixed obstructive lung disease within 24 hours of becoming aware of it.

While California authorities are concerned primarily with 30 diacetly using companies their state, NIOSH is responsible about workers in the thousands of other companies nationwide that are presumed to use diacetyl or its substitutes. I say presumed because the manufacturers and wholesalers of the chemical have repeatedly refused to identify their customers to the public health investigators

Many in the flavoring industry still argue that diacetyl has not been proven the cause of the rare and life-threatening disease. However, Dr. Kay Kreiss and her colleagues at NIOSH – who have been tracking worker exposure to diacetyl for almost a decade – have shown repeatedly that workers exposed to the highest cumulative diacetyl doses had the greatest risk of having breathing abnormalities.

The NIOSH team continues to pursuit the risk from exposure to diacetyl and the untested chemical butter substitutes that the food industry insists are safe.  But several major industrial users are being far from helpful.

Those concerned about diacetyl exposure are waiting to see what happens at the federal worker safety level.

The newly named head of OSHA – David Michaels ­– and the acting agency head – Jordon Barab – both have years of stridently demanding federal action to protect workers and consumers from this butter flavoring.

I guess we’ll wait to see what they do now that they have the power to make a difference.

Here is a link to the proposed diacetyl standard.

H1N1 flu virus Microphoto from the CDC

Here’s a fact: all influenza, not just H1N1, is mostly transmitted by breathing particles of the virus from those with the disease.

So obviously it makes sense that caregivers – from medics on the street, to hospital staff and nursing home workers – wear masks to protect themselves while working with patients with H1N1.

Last month, a panel from the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies reported that the more expensive N95 mask was far more protective than the  traditional disposable surgical-type mask because it stops smaller particles.

The panel and other health researchers in the Centers for Disease Control said the N95 was a vital defense in protecting health care workers from the H1N1 pandemic.

I got several emails on the story I posted on the panel’s conclusions. Half challenged the effectiveness of the N95.

Looks like they might be correct.

Researchers in Canada got 446 nurses in emergency departments, medical  and pediatric units in eight large Ontario hospitals to test the effectiveness of surgical masks with the N95 in protecting against influenza.

The outcome was that there was virtually no difference between masks, according to the study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Of the test participants, Influenza infection occurred in 50 nurses wearing the old style surgical masks and in 48 of the nurses using the much-recommended N95 mask.

These Influenza infections were confirmed by laboratory tests

An editorial which accompanied the study said that it was a  “sad commentary” on the state of research in this area that the Canadian effort is the first and only published randomized trial assessing respiratory protection for preventing influenza transmission.

There is a critical importance of implementing other strategies known to prevent the transmission of influenza.

“Indeed, the use of personal protective equipment such as masks and respirators should be considered the “last line of defense” in a hierarchy of infection control measures,” said the editorial.

However, vaccine for the regular seasonal influenza is widely available.

And, by tomorrow, almost 1.4 million doses of the new nasal-spray Live Attenuated Influenza Vaccine for H1N1 should be delivered to the 47 U.S. states and jurisdiction that had ordered them last week, according to the Centers for Disease Control.

The spray, FluMist®, is approved for use in healthy people from 2 to 49 years of age who are not pregnant, according to the agency. The first shipment will most likely be given to health care workers.

However, some in the health professions are balking at being ordered to get the preventative treatment.

Throughout New York State last week, hundreds of protestors gathered in several locations chanting “No forced shots.”

They loudly opposed an “emergency regulation” which demands that all New York hospitals, hospice, and home healthcare workers be inoculated.

Unions and nursing associations have called the order an “issue of workers’ rights.” Press reports say hospitals have allegedly told workers to get the flu shots or get fired.

For the rest of us, the injectable H1N1 vaccine is also on the way. CDC says it can be ordered now by state health agencies and should begin arriving within about 10 days.

Twenty-seven states reported geographically widespread influenza activity, Guam and 18 states reported regional influenza activity, two states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico reported local influenza activity, Vermont reported sporadic influenza activity, and the U.S. Virgin Islands and Montana and Nevada did not report

Here is a link to more information on the nasal spray.