Occupational Health Nurses Undermine Worker Health

OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH NURSING AND THE

QUEST FOR PROFESSIONAL AUTHORITY

authors: ELAINE DRAPER, JOSEPH LADOU & DAN J. TENNENHOUSE

NEW SOLUTIONS, Vol. 21(1) 57-88, 2011

ABSTRACT

Occupational health nurses provide most of the in-plant health care services in U.S. industry but have dubious credentials to provide care for many of the injuries and illnesses they encounter. The nurses work directly for the employer in an atmosphere designed to control employer costs and employee benefits. Their loyalty to the company and limited autonomy make it unlikely that they will represent the workers’ interests. They generally embrace any expansion of their roles within the company. However, employers and government have made no serious effort to determine whether nurses can adequately take on these new functions and advance occupational health. A nurse-directed model carries the risk that nurses who are not knowledgeable
enough about the law, or are overly committed to reducing costs, may overdelegate responsibilities, thereby aiding and abetting the unlicensed practice of nursing. This overreaching is part of an ill-conceived effort to establish nursing as a profession with the greater independence, expertise, and control over training that longstanding professions such as medicine and law have achieved. An extensive literature devoted to the approval and acceptance of occupational health nursing exists, yet constructive criticism of occupational health nursing is almost nonexistent. Occupational health and safety is much too important to be largely relegated to an inadequately defined semi-profession, striving to attain higher professional status and control while lacking the expertise, power, professional standards, and autonomy required of a profession.

Baywood Publishing Co., Inc.
doi: 10.2190/NS.21.1.i
http://baywood.com/

Worker Safety in Biological Laboratories Is Lacking

The Council for Responsible Genetics has provided a superb overview of the harzards and lack of regulations covering the biotech industry.  See thier summary statment and link below for the full report.

Why would Pfizer, the world’s largest drug company, so mistreat and silence one of their top molecular biologists that a federal jury in Connecticut recently awarded her $1.37 million in damages? The answer promises to tear open the curtain covering hazards confronting tens of thousands of scientists and assistants in corporate, government and university labs. Becky McClain’s lawsuit against Pfizer claimed that the company’s sloppiness exposed her to an engineered form of the lentivirus, a virus related to one that could lead to immune deficiencies. It documented the absence of any available risk assessments and exposed the cruel refusal to give afflicted employees their own exposure records on the grounds that they are company trade secrets. Pfizer denied connections between its lab practices and Ms. McClain’s reoccurring paralysis and other illnesses. Becky McClain is not alone. As a revolution in genetic and other biological sciences has greatly expanded the number of laboratories in the past twenty years, workers in the biological industries have suffered from health and safety regulations that have fallen well behind the times. David Michaels, the head of OSHA, has admitted that there are “many gaps” in his agency’s standards. “New biological materials, nanomaterials, there are many things where we don’t have adequate information” (NY Times interview).

The Council for Responsible Genetics is mobilizing an effort to ensure that worker health and safety are once again protected in the United States by identifying hazards, educating the public and policy makers and working towards the creation of enforceable and openly accessible standards and practices for biological laboratories. Our new report represents an important step in this process as it lays out the current regulatory framework for commercial and academic biotechnology laboratories in the United States, identifies specific gaps in these regulations and offers some initial recommendations for improvements.

The full report can be accessed on the CRG website.

http://www.councilforresponsiblegenetics.org/pageDocuments/J118SCXSUR.pdf

Becky McClain Speaks on Biotechnology and Public Health and Safety

On July 17, 2010 in San Francisco, Pfizer injured biotech molecular biologist Becky McClain discussed her firing for making OSHA complaints and also the potential and real dangers of unregulated development of products in the biotech and nanotech industry without proper oversight. The first US conference on biotechnology and health and safety was sponsored by the California Coalition For Workers Memorial Day www.workersmemorialday.org Additional presentations at the conference are Biotech, CA Osha & Health And Safety Presentation With Dr. Larry Rose http://blip.tv/file/3916683 The Toxic Environment, Public Health, ACOEM And Pfizer:Presentation By Dr. Jack Thrasher http://blip.tv/file/3921769 Conflict of Interest By Judge Says Sandi Trend, Mother of Injured Agraquest Biotech Worker Bell http://blip.tv/file/3924484 Dina Padilla Speaks At Biotech & Health And Safety Conference http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_-_XEnaiNg It was also endorsed by Council For Responsible Genetics www.councilforresponsiblegenetics.org For additional information go to http://www.cpab.info/

http://www.blip.tv/file/3960030

BIOTECH INDUSTRY DENIES INJURED WORKERS RIGHTS_SANDI TREND SPEAKS

Sandi Trend, human rights and public health and safety activist speaks out about the injustices and coverup within the biotech industry against biotech workers.

Her son, David Bell was exposed to harmful biological agents while working at Agraquesta, a biotech company.  Bell immediately became seriously ill and has been denied directed medical care for his work-related exposures. 

Trend spells out some of the problems and fraud that workers face when trying to obtain medical care from dangerous biological exposures at biotech companies.  She emphasizes the lack of workers rights in this industry and the dangers of working in the industry.

See her talk here at the National Conference on Biotechnology, Health and Safety, Labor and the Public:  http://blip.tv/file/3924484

Nanotechnology Professor Found Dead in the Laboratory

A prominent professor of nanotechnology and synthetic biology, Dr. Franco Cerrina, was found dead in his Boston University laboratory early in the morning of July 12, 2010. Dr. Cerrina’s work focused on nanotechnology, synthetic biology, lithography and biotechnology. Was his work dangerous? You bet it was.

What is nanotechnology? Why is it dangerous? Let’s review a bit….

Nanotechnology is still in its infancy. It is a science where scientists intend to build molecular structures one molecule at a time…from the bottom up…so to speak. It is an interdisciplinary science of the physical sciences, life sciences, computer informatics and engineering sciences. Nanotechnology is also part of synthetic biology where scientists intend to create synthetic life forms by designing and creating nano-biological machines and components and placing them inside cells.

Nanotechnology engages in building molecular structures and creating new materials at the nanometer level.

That size is very small. Building structures that are nanometers in size is comparable to 1 million times smaller than the head of a pin or about 2500 times smaller than a red blood cell. The size of a nanometer is about the size of the diameter of a DNA molecule.

The smallness of these nanoparticles makes them both beneficial and dangerous. Their potential benefit is in the ability to use this technology for medical and health sciences with potential to diagnose and cure disease. Nanotechnology also can be used in consumer goods making materials stronger and lighter or having other useful properties. They are already being used in clothing, paint, makeup and sunscreen. They are also being used in semi-conductor research with hopes of making electronics and computers better and faster.

The dangers of nanotechnology lie in the fact that nanoparticles can also unpredictably react with human life, other life and the environment causing harm…serious harm.

Nano- materials behave differently because they are so small compared to a larger or macro scale. They are under the influence of different physical forces…more toward quantum mechanics than gravity. This gives nano-particles different chemical and physical properties. Therefore, nanomaterials are more reactive and more bioactive. They can be toxic and cause cancer. They could be passed from mother to fetus. Nano-particles can exhibit other properties too. For example, copper loses its opaqueness and becomes transparent when produced on a nanoscale. Aluminum, stable at the macro level, becomes combustible when produced as a nano-particle.

Nanoparticles cause risk to humans since their size allows them to more easily cross the skin, lung or blood brain barrier.

Despite these obvious threats, scant research is being invested into nanotech health issues. The little research done has caused alarm. Fish exposed to nanoparticles have been found to have extensive brain damage. Nanoparticles have been found to accumulate in the bodies of lab animals which makes a link to possible food chain accumulation if nanoparticles are released into the environment. Nanoparticles called quantum dots can cause cadium poisoning in humans. Nano-particles have been found in the brain and lung tissues of rats exposed to nano-particles and subsequently caused inflammation and biochemical stress responses.

More concerning is that nanoparticles, because of their small size, could enter into the environment or life forms without detection.

Nanotechnology is big business. The government is funding it at $1.5 Billion per year and industry is adding another $8 Billion per year. There are about 1650 nanotechnology companies world wide with the majority located within the U.S.

Powerful economic forces and competition in the marketplace are taking precedence over safeguards when it comes to protecting workers and the public against the possible dangers of nanotechnology. This is causing some scientists and public to become concerned.

Dr. Franco Cerrina found dead within the laboratory raises questions regarding the cause of his death. Was it due to a work-related illness? It is very possible…but we most likely will never find out.

Worker’s Memorial Day, a Day to Fight for the Living

Worker’s Memorial Day, a Day to Fight for the Living
By Becky A. McClain, April 27, 2010

On April 28th people around the globe gather to commemorate Worker’s Memorial Day. It is a day to remember those who lost their lives at work, but also a day to fight for the living, to continue to advocate for injured workers, to advocate for safe work environments and to protect public health and safety.

I am Becky McClain, a career scientist, a whistleblower, and an injured biotech worker who acquired an illness after a work-related exposure to a genetically engineered virus at Pfizer

My case is unique in some ways and not so unique in others.

It is not unique in ways where history seems to whisper her stories. …Stories told where corporations can often prioritized “bottom lines” over workplace safety. …Stories that tell a tale about workers being intimidated to raise safety issues for fear of losing their job or position, and where workers must work in unsafe work conditions. …and stories about injured workers who are subsequently terminated, abandoned and ill, with no place to turn.

But my case is unique in other ways. Most notably because it involves the world of recombinant DNA, a world where new genetically engineered infectious agents are being created almost every day in our neighborhood university research labs and private biotech and pharmaceutical companies throughout the United States. It is unique because unsafe laboratory practices can not only harm workers, but also could impact the public’s health by creating new emerging disease and new chronic illness.

Dangerous public health and safety-related issues in the biotech field are real, not only relating to my story, but also, for others around the country. This past year Dr. Malcolm Casadaban, a Professor of Molecular Genetics from the Univ. of Chicago died after a work-acquired infection to Yersinia pestis, the bacteria linked to the plague, a bacterium that had been laboratory-attenuated, disabling its ability to cause disease. Unfortunately, that latter fact turned out to be unknowingly wrong. Dr. Casadaban’s death brings to light the unprecedented dangers which biotech workers face and which the public should be made aware.

Dangers in the biotech field have personally impacted me also. Consequently, for the past six years I have been fighting work-related legal battles for my health and to advocate for public health and safety. Through these struggles, I have learned that the biotech industry holds very little protections for workers. For example, biologists have no legal rights to have safety issues addressed formally at work, even if issues are of a public concern. In addition, biotech workers who are inadvertently exposed to genetically engineered infectious agents at work, have no healthcare rights and no legal remedy for an illness which may subsequently develop.

So although I am overjoyed to have recently won a federal lawsuit against Pfizer in violation of my whistleblower rights and my free speech for public health and safety, I am disappointed and concerned to still have no legal remedy regarding Pfizer’s failure to provide the appropriate exposure records necessary for my healthcare, even after doctors’ requests.

And what is most concerning is that no other worker has these rights either.

In fact, OSHA has established a ruling in my case that “trade secrets” supersede a worker’s right to obtain appropriate exposure records upon a biological exposure….records, I may add, that are necessary for directed healthcare.

This is a terrible situation and provides a horrific precedent for all biotech workers and other workers exposed to any type of biological agent while at work. Not only does this ruling increase the likelihood that injured biotech workers will not receive directed medical care, but it also helps conceal the actual work-related biotech injuries from the public’s eye. In addition, since workers could possibly become infectious through an exposure at work, it raises serious public health and safety issues.

I personally would never have imagined that this type of worker rights issue and human rights issue would have even been possible in America.

These issues provide glaring examples where we must fight for the living. Workers who incur a biological exposure should have the right to obtain full disclosure of the exposure information necessary for directed healthcare. And companies, like Pfizer, who do not disclose or keep adequate exposure records on infectious agents they create, should be severely penalized. In addition, scientists should have legal rights and a formal structure to address health and safety issues on the job. Finally, our broken Worker Compensation system leaves many injured workers destitute and abandoned. It needs to be revamped and strengthened to provide timely and appropriate healthcare for all injured workers, including those who acquire illness. These initiatives, to fight for the living, not only provide for a safe work environment, but also, protect and benefit the public.

Today on Worker’s Memorial Day we reflect on all of those who have lost their lives at work this past year, Perhaps, we should especially remember the most recent tragedies in the United States: the 5 men who died during the Middletown Kleen Energy explosion in Connecticut, the 29 miners who lost their lives at the Massey West Virginia Coal Mine Explosion, as well as, the 11 men who lost their lives at the oil rig explosion off the coast of Louisiana. These deaths, along with the numerous serious injuries, reflect how catastrophic it can be when unsafe work conditions are ignored.

But let us not forget on this Worker’s Memorial Day also, those nameless souls who have died through work-related illness, abandoned because of no laws or legal protections. We should moreover bear in mind on this day, those currently struggling with work-related illness or injuries who suffer the same abandonment. May these men and women be also remembered in our prayers and provide a reason to fight for the living.

Laboratory Worker Becomes Infected in BL3 Lab

(Picture of Tularemia lesion on Right Hand)

Poor Biocontainment Issues in Laboratories Raises Public Health and Safety Issues

A Fort Detrick laboratory worker has been infected with Tularemia, a bacteria which causes skin lesions, flu like symptoms, pneumonia or typhoid forms of the disease.

Tularemia can penetrate into the body through damaged skin and mucous membranes, or through inhalation. The natural form of Tularemia (i.e, not genetically engineered) typically is not spread from person to person. Rather, it is usually contracted through tick bites or handling diseased animals.

The infected researcher had been working with Tularemia in a BL3 lab at Fort Detrick at the time she became ill around November 23, 2009.

A BL3 (Biosafety level 3) laboratory is a biocontainment level having high levels of containment in hopes of preventing release of dangerous microorganisms into the environment.

How BL3 biocontainment of Tularemia was not maintained and, consequently, caused an illness, remains a mystery.

There is very little regulatory oversight in dangerous BL2 to BL4 laboratories that work on natural or genetically engineered human infectious agents throughout the United States. Worker's rights to a safe work environment are legally limited. This lack of protection for the public presents a serious public health and safety threat which seems to get very little attention and is usually kept from the public’s eye.

http://www.wtop.com/?nid=25&sid=1831256
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tularemia

http://blip.tv/file/2061380

Toxic Sites, Brownfields and Downey Studio

Dec 3, 2009
Written by Dina J. Padilla

MAJOR 1st amendment and very human VICTORY occurred on 11-13-09, The kaiserpapers.org website, the website owner, Vickie Travis and myself, Dina J. Padilla won the Slapp suit because the judge dismissed it WITH prejudice, MEANING that Stuart Lichter can never bring the same lawsuit against us on the same material that was on the website. This Slapp suit was filed in 8-08 by Stuart Lichter and his Attorney David S.White. An article in the L.A. Times referred to this lawsuit n 8-2-09 with Downey Studio workers getting sick. Leonard Martin had also won the suit earlier on but Stuart Lichter and his attorney fought it and it went to the Calfornia Applellate Court. The outcome is hopeful for Leonard Martin since we won.

What was on the website was about the Downey Studio that Stuart Lichter owns and where a Kaiser medical complex is built on what is a toxic Superfund-Brownfield site.

There are many Brownfield sites and we have at least four here in Sacramento. Aerojet, Mather, McClellan, Army Depot, but railroad yards and gas stations are also considered brownfields. The local news are starting to report some news about these sites but clearly not enough to alert all the people to the many dangers we all face.

Brownfields are loaded with poisons like radiation,depleted unranium, pesticides, diesel, arsenic, chromium hexolate, anthrax, agent orange and about another 250 deadly(carcinogens) contaminates that were claimed to be cleaned up-remediated like and by an ex- employee for GSA-General Services Agency, and for over 30 years, Stuart Lichter, who also claimed to clean up the Downey site as well as the site on McClellan Park here in North Highlands, Ca.. He had not payed insurance on this property and the DOI has allowed this. His office of IRG is in Littleton, Co. With many IRG's across the nation.

Stuart Lichter stalled in answering our interrogatories FOR MANY months even though HE WAS THE ONE WHO brought the Slapp suit aginst us for malice and CLAIMING losses of millions of dollars. He wanted the whole website down which mostly includes information about Kaiser-Kaiser Permanente. Stuart Lichter claimed that Kaiser Permanente was not in the law suit but it is interesting to note that he wanted the whole site down and also wanted any'all info pertaining to Kaiser.

The Downey Studios has had many movies made on that property and that it has so many deadly contaminates on it (and Stuart had every opportunity to say differently in a deposition BUT DID NOT) that all workers, actors, extras, including children have been exposed to what the federal government with NASA and Boeing left.. The Other factor is that Kaiser got to build on that site with a hospital and a clinic, right on a toxic brownfield site where patients, workers and visitors are every day and night being exposed to many deadly contaminates just as those who work building production sites for movie makers.

Many workers at the studio have gotten very sick and their claims have all been denied for any illness. They struggle along with their families to survive and go without the medical care they need. If no insurance claims are paid out (liability) then the property where the studios and kaiser are at will be able to build PERMANENT housing, exposing many families with children to the same deadly toxins.

This already has occurred at the Railroad yards and McClellan Park here in Roseville/Citrus Heights and Sacramento. Build a park or an arena and then such things as permanent housing is allowed. Habitat for Humnaity will be built at McClellan park for the indigenous to live on and get gravely ill.

Irreversible diseases are in our air,soil and water tables that will and are surely causing cancers, kidney diseases, diabetes, thyroid and other medical problems such as asthma and other respiratory problems. If you think about all of this, then you have to realize that far too many people are sick and dying at unprecedented rates of diseases that were very rare when most of us were kids. (I'm in my 60's).

Stuart Lichter has built on many toxic properties in Ohio as in California with local, state and federal assistance by the legislators but also by public officials in the DOD & DOE and public officials who have gone into the privatizing of these sites..FOR PROFIT FOR A FEW!

That assistance also includes billions of federal dollars and the current one in Downey is a new car manufacturing plant-TESLA from the Bay area (non union) building cars that are worth $115,000 claiming to use ELECTRIC energy with more more MPG's. This particular site is claiming almost 500,000 million dollars of federal money.

Now workers who are going to work in a car plant will be exposed to the same deadly contaminates as the studio workers, including children and kaiser workers and patients. The Downey site is also on a major earthquake fault.

Our own government through IRAD has allowed the privatization of these toxic Superfund-Brownfield sites to make money by letting people like Stuart Lichter develop on these toxic sites without cleaning them up, even though he has claimed to have cleaned them up. Let us please see this proof. Some of these sites can never be cleaned, such as Downey, McClellan or the Sacramento Rail Road yards.

Many public officials who are in both state and federal EPA are SAYING that these sites have been cleaned up. If that is the case, then Stuart Lichter could have proven he remediated the Downey site by answering the interrogatories, BUT HE DID NOT.

Across the U.S., there is gentrification that is going on. Older neighborhoods are being remodeled but many of the neighborhoods had toxic lands next to them exposing millions to deadly contaminates. My old neighborhood in Chicago is one of them.

Who does this effect the most?

It affects all of us, the U.S. workers. Who are the workers? They are people like our soldiers who are and have been exposed to the same contaminates, people like you, me, your children, college students, minorities, women, people of all creeds, the 99% that pay taxes, obey laws, those of you work every day to make things better for you & your family. The people who work for a living in a country that espouses "The American Dream".

Now mind you, I learned about Downey at the about the same time I learned about mold, which was at Kaiser Bellflower facility, not far from the Downey site and also about the bio tech industry and then the chem trails. This is far more information for me to wrap my head around in a year and now going on over 2 years. Just as it will be for all of you to try and comprehend and fathom as you are reading this. I still have some days that I have a hard time understanding that our own government is allowing to happen to the majority of the American people, BUT IT IS. And that this is happening in other countries like New Zealand and the Ukraine.

I have to thank Matt Gonzales-Leigh from San Francisco Ca. who ran for THE Peace & Freedom Party Vice President & running with Ralph Nader as President for the Peace& Freedom Party for President of the U.S. and his assistant attorneys who stayed the course and fought the fight against developers like Stuart Lichter who have used SLAPP SUITS against people who dare blow the whistle on MONUMENTAL government malfeasance ON THE PEOPLE OF THIS NATION.

NO ONE POLITICIAN or state or fedral agency that all of this has been brought to, IS CONCERNING THEMSELVES ON THE THESE ISSUES BROUGHT BEFORE THEM!!!!

Ralph Nader &Matt Gonzales cared enough to show up at a Downey conference and also a Peace& Freedom Convention where these were issues brought up. I, in my heart of hearts, know that Ralph Nader is perhaps the most caring individual for workers and consumers unlike no other politician.

Ralph Nader since the 60's was responsible in bringing the most protection safety nets for us but that since, subsequent politicians, have destroyed our safety nets that he created and what we paid for.

Now when you drink your water and the fish that comes out of that water, eat your (organic and otherwise) veggies and fruit, eat protein like beef chicken & pork, go outside to smell the roses, or even take your meds, please remember there are people like Stuart Lichter who are profiting on properties that are being developed to maim, poison and kill people.

And those that will benefit will be the high end investors who are on Wall St. who are also invested in these toxic Superfund brownfield properties, bio tech companies, insurance companies, HMO's chemical and pharmaceutical companies that will surely do the rest of us in.

Sincerely,
Dina J.Padilla
Future P&FP Candidate Dept.of Insurance Commissioner

Biotech Health Risks Cause Concern

An article in Harzards Magazine V427 October 10, 2009 voices concerns over biotech safety in the USA. See story below:

USA: Biotech health risks cause concern
The mother of a worker who believes his health was ruined as a result of working in California's cutting edge biotech industry has expressed her anger at the refusal by the firm's health insurers to pay his medical bills. Sandi Trend's son, David Bell, was sickened at the Davis based company AgraQuest. She says the firm's owner, Pam Marrone, and its health insurer Liberty Mutual have refused to provide his healthcare despite evidence that he had the genetically engineered products in his body. She says these products have wrecked her son's immune system. The campaigning mother has also accused the California Fraud Assessment Commission of failing to bring fraud charges against the firm. She alleged the watchdog and district attorneys care more for wealthy companies in the state than for sick workers. David Bell says the lack of proper health and safety protection at AgraQuest led to his contamination and sickness. He also alleges the company sought to cover-up their responsibility for his illness. A US poll published last week found 90 per cent of Americans think that the public should be better informed about the development of cutting-edge technologies including synthetic biology. Two-thirds of the respondents supported regulation of this emerging technology. 'Regardless of their awareness of synthetic biology, or where they come down on the risk-benefit tradeoff, a strong majority of adults think this research should be regulated by the federal government,' said Geoff Garin, president of Peter D Hart Research, the organisation that conducted the poll.
Blip TV - labor Video Project. Biotechnology Awareness webpages on David Bell. PEN news item.

http://www.tuc.org.uk/h_and_s/tuc-17069-f0.cfm#tuc-17069-22

Public Trust in Public Health and Safety

Here is a link to a "must read", tongue in cheek article regarding public rights to public health and safety,.... or rather the lack of it. It is worth a read since it holds many truths about how our legal and regulatory systems are designed to enhanced unfettered corporate interests, crippling the public's trust and rights to public health and safety. Written by Carolyn Raffensperger...it is a winner.

http://www.sehn.org/pdf/sep-oct2007.pdf

Violence in the Worker’s Compensation System-Desperate Times for Injured Workers

I would highly advise all worker’s who have been harmed by the Worker’s Compensation system NOT to walk into the worker’s compensation buildings toting a rifle like one angry man did yesterday, demanding help.

It won’t get you anywhere except in jail or in a straight jacket.

Unfortunately, injured workers find out too late, only after they are seriously injured, that the WC system is broken, leaving many of them without adequate medical care, no avenue for future employment and without adequate compensation. Many injured workers become desperate and angry, realizing that the system has failed them and their future.

It can lead to desperate measures like the one took by this rifle-toting man, demanding help at gunpoint.

I am almost certain that every injured worker who has been mistreated by Worker’s Compensation can empathize with the struggles that this man must have endured to make him act so desperately. But his desperate act was not the right choice and it doesn’t help anyone. The way to solve the problem is not with violence but with unity.

The problem, however, is that there is no adequate organization that is currently available to help injured workers who are getting dumped on by the Worker’s Compensation system.

Injured workers around the world must show leadership and organize as a group. There is no other group that understands the problems beset within the Worker’s Compensation system better than the injured worker.

Injured Workers need to unite to help educate other workers about the real problems that exist. Injured Workers also need to support union representation to protect worker and public health and safety.

If injured workers do not unite, nothing will get accomplished. Desperate times and desperate measures will continue and injured workers will remain abandoned and mistreated as they are today.

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/713574--9-may-be-held-by-edmonton-armed-man

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/31/nyregion/31comp.html

California Dina Padilla Runs for Insurance Commissioner, Claiming Fraud Is Used Against Injured Workers

Dina Padilla is an advocate for injured workers to obtain medical care. Dina is running for insurance commissioner to combat against the fraud which pointingly deny worker's their right to healthcare. She is a voice for the people and a voice for justice. Watch her video here!

Federal Task Force on Biosafety Needs Broader Oversight For Public Health and Safety

A Report of the Trans-Federal Task Force on Optimizing Biosafety and Biocontainment Oversight was finalized on June 2009. This report outlines the need to optimize biosafety oversight in BL3-BL4 high and maximum containment facilities.

Unfortunately the report for oversight does not cover infectious agents used in BL2 laboratories which are more numerous in number, found in every major research institute and which also pose significant worker and public health and safety threats.

Some information in the report is a bit shocking. The government doesn’t even have a current registry of all BL3-BL4 labs where extremely hazardous and contagious biological agents are being used. In addition, the government does not have a centralized incident-reporting analysis for injuries or mishaps in biological laboratories.

Some of the information in the report is also a bit skewed in my opinion. For example, the report includes a table of injury statistics in R&D facilities from OSHA which I find to be unreliable data. The result of this OSHA study gives the impression that R&D facilities have a much lower average of injuries than general private industry. But “not all private R&D facilities were surveyed, and no Federal high or maximum containment research facilities were surveyed”

Also, through my own personal experience, I am more than skeptical regarding OSHA data. When I was employed as a biologist working in R&D in 2002, at least 5 people became ill (incapacitating, headaches, nausea or vomiting) from an exposure from a biological hood and NOT one of the illnesses was reported to OSHA. So much for trusting OSHA data and the dangers at R&D facilities.

Although the report does a good job summarizing the current agencies and regulations which impact biological laboratories, it is a bit slanted in not reporting the weakness of the laws and oversight. For example, the report gives a good summary of the OSHA laws but never mentions that the statute of limitations are so restrictive that the OSHA law is impractical for scientists to report safety problems or illness in biological laboratories.

Similarly they mention that the State of Connecticut instituted a law regarding agents capable of infecting humans. But what they do not mention is that this law does not cover genetically engineered agents or recombinant DN A infectious agents.

The other major weakness in the report is that it does not address our poor whistleblower laws which currently are so weak they provide no protections for scientists and protections for public health and safety. In addition, important human rights issues such as the lack of worker’s right to obtain appropriate exposure records necessary for medical care after incurring a biological exposure was purposely left out of the report.

Despite the fact of its deficiencies, the report is a step in the right direction in an attempt to clarify some objectives needed for better governmental oversight on the most dangerous biological research laboratories in the United States. In short, the report identifies eight new objectives to increase biological safety in these labs. They are listed below:

Summary of Objectives

1. Enhance the overarching framework for biosafety and biocontainment oversight of high and maximum containment research through improved coordination of oversight activities.

2. Encourage a robust culture of accountability characterized by individual and institutional compliance with biosafety and biocontainment regulations, guidelines, standards, and policies.

3. Develop a national strategy to enable and ensure the appropriate training and technical competence of all individuals who work in, oversee, support, or manage high or maximum containment research laboratories.

4. Obtain and analyze information about laboratory incidents to enable trend analysis, minimize the number of future incidents, and share lessons learned, with the overall goals of optimizing laboratory safety and oversight.

5. Ensure that biosafety and biocontainment regulations and guidelines cover current and emerging hazardous biological agents, and develop an agricultural equivalent of the BMBL.

6. Ensure that the infrastructure and equipment necessary for biosafety and biocontainment at high and maximum containment research facilities are in place and properly maintained.

7. Develop and support a national research agenda for applied biosafety and biocontainment to improve the management of biohazard risks.

8. Improve and share strategies to ensure effective public communication, outreach, and transparency about biosafety and biocontainment issues.

Pfizer Cares More About Animal Rights Than Human Rights.

Fired Worker Stages Protests at Pfizer
TowerShim Dong-hee, right, leader of the Pfizer Animal Health “labor union,” holds a signboard saying “I will never bow down to unfair pressure” with a colleague in front of Pfizer Tower in Myeongdong, downtown Seoul, Friday afternoon. The multinational firm does not recognize the union.
/ Korea Times photo by Shim Hyun-chul

Article By Kang Shin-who Staff Reporter
A usually busy footpath in front of the Pfizer Korea building in downtown Seoul turned into the scene of a small disturbance Friday. Only five people participated in this condemnation of the multinational pharmaceutical firm's labor practices. But banners and placards they used were big enough to catch the attention of passersby. This demonstration has been going on three times a week since August. Shim Dong-hee, 38, the fired head of a workers' organization at Pfizer Animal Health, demanded that he be reinstated and that the company recognize their right to organize as a union. "The company disbanded our union three times since the late 1990s," Shim told The Korea Times during Friday's protest. He was attempting to set up a union for the fourth time but was fired instead. Shim and his colleagues chanted a slogan calling for dialogue, with pickets saying "Pfizer Is No Good" and "Pfizer Cares More About Animal Rights Than Human Rights.""I will continue to fight and will not stop protesting until the vicious company comes to the negotiating table," he said. Pfizer's animal health department, which Shim used to work for, has 46 workers, making it eligible for union formation. Company officials were not available for comments despite repeated calls. Pfizer Korea, however, allows a union separately from the animal experimentation department. This union has 320 workers as members out of 700 workers.kswho@koreatimes.co.kr

The Plague of Biosafety

The Plague of Biosafety

There is mounting evidence that biosafety is not being regulated efficiently in the biotech and academic laboratories. Despite the fact that the media altogether downplays the public health and safety ramifications of biological research, this is serious stuff. It costs lives in more ways than one.

Recently, University of Chicago Professor Malcolm Casadaban died from the plague bacteria he was studiying. For more on this story click here.

Public Health and Safety has taken a back seat when it comes to biological research and development. Laws and regulations are lacking in this field of research. It is increasingly difficult to obtain information about laboratory aquired infections since institutions are self-policing. Bio-terrorism could easily be produced from a lab in the U.S.

As new emerging disease and chronic illness rise, laboratories, using dangerous genetically engineered organisms and other infectious agents, fail to ensure public health and safety. People with chronic illness or new disease remain to suffer with unexplained ailments, conditions that could be a result of biological research.

Biotech Worker's Rights DENIED

Biotech worker, David Bell is denied Health and Safety Protections and Workers' Compensation after exposure to Agraquest's biological agents.

Below is a complaint written by David Bell's mother to the Commission on Health and Safety and Worker's Compensation in California.


August 27, 2009
Commission on Health and Safety and Workers' Compensation
1515 Clay St,
Oakland, CA 94612

RE: Complaint

California is NOT protecting employees rights to work in safe and healthy
environments nor are injured employees given the right to know of the hazards they
have been exposed to.

California employers, who willfully violate Federal and state laws are not held
accountable, they are given the green light to continue to violate the law and there
misdeeds of fraud and concealment are hidden under the umbrella of protection
within the corrupt California worker’s compensation system.

My son, David Bell worked as a laboratory Assistant Researcher/Microbiologist (to
obtain lab hours for his Bachelor of Science Degree) for one of these employers,
Agraquest Inc. (AQ) a biotechnology company that discovers, screens and
experiments with known and unknown microorganisms, AQ searches the world for
microorganisms; and brings them into the U.S., mostly in soil, They receive
microorganisms from “microbe hunters” and other biotech companies; not known is
whether they were natural or mutations and had been genetically modified. At last
count there were over 23,000 microorganisms in AQ’s “microbe collection”.
David also worked with and was exposed to larvae and live insects.

After 5 months and 9 days at AQ, after vomiting and being sick for days David had
purulent bloody pus draining from his nose. He told his supervisor he was sick and
clocked out. He then went to Immediate Care Medical Clinic; was placed on the broad
spectrum antibiotic Zithromax and told to see an ear, nose and throat specialist. This
he did; now the left side of his face and teeth were numb. He was scheduled for the
first, of what would become four major sinus surgeries only seven ( 7 ) days after
seeking emergency medical care. He’s had countless other sinus procedures in
physicians offices through the years.

David stopped producing enough B-cells for an intact immune system; for 3 years,
every 28 days he was hooked up to an IV pump receiving IMMUNOGLOBULIN
infusions at the hospital; each lasting up to 7 hours.

Several of David’s vital organs have been affected as the result of his employment at
the AQ laboratory; respiratory, lungs, heart, liver, spleen and GI tract.
Denied by AQ as being the result of David’s workplace illness and disease were
nineteen (19 ) fungus and bacteria that have been identified in David’s blood, sputum
and/or nose cultures and/or lab results showing levels of antibodies as a result of
exposure; ranging from positive to HIGH POSITIVE. ALL of these fungus and bacteria
are linked to AQ’s products, patents and/or other companies patents that the
scientists at AQ are listed as inventors.

This is David’s medical from 1995-1998; seven ( 7 ) pages total, 1 page is a
Confidential Health Information Form. This is his medical costs after working for AQ
beginning 1999 through 2005 with a cost of over $333,000, mostly paid by medicare
and none by AQ’s workers comp carrier. I stopped calculating after 2005 although to
this day he is still sick and has mucous of every shade of the rainbow coming from
his nose. That is, when he can get it out.

As David’s mother, I swear to you; he has never been sick like this before he went to
work at AQ. He had seasonal allergies, normal colds and flu and he did have a
hernia surgery at the age of 6 because of a car accident.
California has to stop protecting businesses and start protecting it’s workers.

Thank you,
Sandi Trend

cc: file
attachments: Three ( 3 ) photo’s
1) David Bell medical prior to working at AQ; 3 years (1995-1998)
(7 pages ; (1 page is a Confidential Health Information Form) and
comparison to David Bell Medical billings after working at AQ;
(1999-2005)
2) David Bell medical billings after working at AQ (1999-2005)
3) Comparison of David Bell medical prior to working at AQ; 3 years
(1995-1998) and David Bell medical billings after working at AQ (1999-
2005)

Building A CASE Against an Injured Worker

Pfizer Loses Worker Compensation Case

Pfizer to pay workers' comp for exposure to organics


By Lee Howard Published in The Day on 7/16/2009

The Connecticut Appellate Court, in a decision that won't be officially released until July 21, has ruled in favor of a former Pfizer Inc. employee in a workers' compensation case.

Ronald C. Chappell of Groton, a former chemical operator in the fermentation department of Pfizer's one-time manufacturing facility in Groton, filed a workers' compensation claim in 2002, saying his exposure to organic molds and other materials - including blood meal and ground-up chicken parts - led to his asthma, which a doctor determined to be an occupational disease.

”In general, employers don't like to pay for occupational diseases,” said Carolyn P. Kelly, who represented Chappell along with lead attorney Matthew Shafner of the New London firm Suisman Shapiro, who estimated that more than half of these claims are contested.

Kelly said Chappell will likely get a lump-sum payment, plus continued compensation for out-of-pocket medical expenses. In addition, his insurer may be able to collect money it has paid for his asthma care in the past as well as going forward.

Kelly said Pfizer could further contest the claim by taking the case to the state Supreme Court, but she thought this step was unlikely. Chappell, throughout his seven-year workers' compensation effort, has received no money for his out-of-pocket asthma care, she added.
Pfizer and its co-defendant, the Wausau Insurance Co., had opposed the claim on technical grounds, including whether asthma in this case constituted an occupational disease. But Pfizer, in this phase of the case, admitted Chappell's asthma arose out of his employment in the fermentation department.

Pfizer was represented by Vernon attorney Erik S. Bartlett.

The appellate court said procedures used to clean tanks at the fermentation facility - where antibiotics were manufactured - exposed Chappell to airborne waste and residue. “(Chappell) did not wear protective respiratory gear during the cleaning procedure, nor was he required to do so by (Pfizer),” the court said in its findings of fact.

”There is no dispute that his exposure arose out of and in the course of his duties as a chemical operator or that it directly led to his asthma,” the court said. “(Chappell's) asthma constitutes an occupational disease because his employment as a chemical operator in (Pfizer's) fermentation department was more likely to cause this disease than would other kinds of employment under the same conditions.”

Chappell's request for workers' compensation had previously been approved by the workers' comp commissioner for the second district and by the workers' compensation review board.
An attempt to reach Chappell proved unsuccessful.

A Pfizer spokesman said the company had not seen the decision and had no comment on it.
l.howard@theday.com
Click here to see story at The Day