Bush's OSHA Suffered Through Inaction

In early 2001, an epidemiologist at the Occupational Safety and Health Administration sought to publish a special bulletin warning dental technicians that they could be exposed to dangerous beryllium alloys while grinding fillings. Health studies showed that even a single day's exposure at the agency's permitted level could lead to incurable lung disease.

After the bulletin was drafted, political appointees at the agency gave a copy to a lobbying firm hired by the country's principal beryllium manufacturer, according to internal OSHA documents. The epidemiologist, Peter Infante, incorporated what he considered reasonable changes requested by the company and won approval from key directorates, but he bristled when the private firm complained again.

"In my 24 years at the Agency, I have never experienced such indecision and delay," Infante wrote in an e-mail to the agency's director of standards in March 2002. Eventually, top OSHA officials decided, over what Infante described in an e-mail to his boss as opposition from "the entire OSHA staff working on beryllium issues," to publish the bulletin with a footnote challenging a key recommendation the firm opposed.

Read the whole story here.

Comments

[Dlahoda]

Under Bush, OSHA did seem like dusty regulatory chotchke. But I wonder if the economic climate will deter an OSHA revival, usually predicted with a Democratic administration. See "Is Bush OSHA vs. Obama OSHA a fork in the road?" at www.oshahealthcareadvisor.com.

[nofltwlt]

Bush has put every American in danger. Bush is an absolute disaster as president and as a person.

[TJCole]

And this is news somehow, as if we haven't known this for the last 7 years...!

[kareemachan]

Profit over safety. Gee, where have I heard of this under Shrub's regime before? Unfortunately, this is not a new story.

[swift goat pet for truth]

Oh, for eight years already.

Why is this news now?

[edwcorey]

This guy looks like the offspring of Donald Rumsfeld and Alberto Gonzales. Remember: cancer is better for the GDP than healthy work environments.

[sonoffestus]

We need some public hangings!

[schatsie]

Hey, Cry Baby Capitalism sees the workers as expendable, and they are... And just think, they die before collecting Social Security or Medicare...You have to understand that these Cry Baby Capitalists are doing us a favor....NOT....

The real question is how quickly can Barack get the WhistleBlowers back in there to find and correct this malfeasance.

[NWGuy]

With the right wing / God of Profit (GOP) value system that profit trumps human health or environmental concerns every time, this makes perfect sense. To the GOP it is more important for a company to make a profit than to protect its workers. Besides, there are always more workers to take an injured or ill workers place. On top of that, the worker class is there to serve the privileged class (the GOP), right?

This was not incompetence or corruption, this was well planned out and executed to do just what it accomplished -- reduced regulations to benefit the wealthy at the expense of the working class. This is who the republicans really are.

[edwcorey]

That's why these guys are "pro-life." They need people to take the place of the dead and dying. Plus, your business ain't worth Dick if it ain't growing every quarter.

[LogicNow]

Can someone please tell me why we, the taxpayers, will be paying for Bush/Cheney's lifelong pension and top-tier health care benefits when they are blatant criminals? Please. Seriously. How do we refuse to do this. The thought of one penny of my taxes going to either of these A.$$ h.ole.s for the rest of their miserable lives makes me seriously sick to my stomach, when I can't afford health insurance for myself.

[HoneyBQuick]

Amen, Amen, AMEN.

WHAT CAN WE DO?

[lvdragonlady]

BUSH the de-regulator of everything, so that the lobbyists and their companies can endanger more Americans.

[Grunty1]

Is there any part of the Bush adminstration that did NOT endanger lives (usually for someone's profit)?

[Wiserone]

And, Laura Bush has been on her "magical mystical tour" for GW and proclaiming that history will judge hubby well. That whole family is delusional. Just go back to TX, stay there and never be heard from again.

[clearthinker2008]

Always for someone's profits.

[Grunty1]

True. I was trying to think of counter examples but couldn't find one. Even Katrina was hugely profitable to those companies who received no-bid contracts to clean up the city (and failed miserably)

[LarryMcD]

The question that now arises is "If the technicians grinding the fillings are at risk from a single day's exposure, what are the long term effects on patients?".

It will take us decades, if not generations, to recover from the willful malfeasance of these criminals... and they left us so close to national bankruptcy that it may simply never happen.

[moAb]

The dust is the culprit (known to industry, medical docs and public health types for a long time).
Check out this site for some more info (not a pretty picture).

http://www.chemicalindustryarchives.org/dirtysecrets/beryllium/1.asp

[bmermaid]

Incompetence & corruption from the top to the bottom of this administration.
And they think history will judge them kindly? It will just get worse.

[ibsteve2u]

I would have gone with willful collect, negligent homicide, and manslaughter were I asked to describe this Administration's cumulative actions.