Confronting Two Crises: The COVID-19 Pandemic, the Opioid Epidemic, and the Industrial Hygienist

This article was originally written for and published in the January 2021 issue of The Synergist, a monthly publication of the American Industrial Hygiene Association. The article addresses the convergence of the COVID-19 and opioid crises, the impact of the opioid crisis on the workplace and workers, and the role that industrial hygienists can play in developing workplace programs to prevent and respond to opioid misuse. While the article is specifically written for industrial hygienists, the review and recommendations will be useful to others who are developing workplace opioid prevention programs. Note that the data presented in this article were current as of January 2021. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s latest available data are for the twelve-month period ending October 2020 and include 88,990 total overdose deaths and 91,862 predicted, when reporting is completed. Source: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/drug-overdose-data.htm (accessed on 15 June 2021).

P.2.18 The curriculum implementation of occupational medicine in israel

BackgroundAt the early 1990s occupational medicine (OM) was recognized as a specialty in Israel. Fifteen years later after gathering problems and shortcomings of the first curriculum, the Israeli Association of occupational medicine (IAOM) defined the framework for a new curriculum in order to have a modern and better curriculum.MethodsIn the early 2000 an expert committee apointed by the IAOM suggested a new sylabous, based on the scientific literature. The recommendations were sent to all experts in OM in Israel, and other proffesional members like industrial hygienist. We got several responses. Most people suggested additional standards.ResultsThe curiculun includes 54 months of training programme. The characteristics of the new curriculum are: interaction between theory and practice; fields of knowledge, learning process; competencies which are needed; and multidisciplinarity. We added an obligatory walkthroug list of industries. Three of the walkthroug reports consists a part of the final oral examinations.ConclusionsThe aim of the curriculum was to produce a comprhensive aproach in OM competencies. The curiculum was adopted by the Israeli Medical Association and Ministery of Health since 2010.

Parental occupational exposures and the risk of childhood sporadic retinoblastoma: a report from the Children’s Oncology Group

ObjectivesWe examined associations between parental occupational chemical exposures up to 10 years before conception and the risk of sporadic retinoblastoma among offspring.MethodsIn our multicentre study on non-familial retinoblastoma, parents of 187 unilateral and 95 bilateral cases and 155 friend controls were interviewed by telephone. Exposure information was collected retroactively through a detailed occupational questionnaire that asked fathers to report every job held in the 10 years before conception, and mothers 1 month before and during the index pregnancy. An industrial hygienist reviewed all occupational data and assigned an overall exposure score to each job indicating the presence of nine hazardous agents.ResultsWe estimated elevated ORs for unilateral and bilateral retinoblastoma among offspring of fathers who were exposed to polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons or paints in the 10 years before conception. However, only for exposure to paints did confidence limits exclude the null for bilateral disease (OR: 8.76, 95% CI: 1.32 to 58.09). Maternal prenatal exposure to at least one of the nine agents was related to increased risk of unilateral disease in their children (OR: 5.25, 95% CI: 1.14 to 24.16). Fathers exposed to at least one of the nine agents and who were ≥30 years of age were at increased risk of having a child diagnosed with bilateral retinoblastoma (OR: 6.59, 95% CI: 1.34 to 32.42).ConclusionsOur results suggest a role for several hazardous occupational exposures in the development of childhood retinoblastoma.

Make Health and Safety a Part of Global Struggles Against Imperialism, Racism, and Other Oppressions

Deborah “Deeg” Gold was presented in November 2016 with the Alice Hamilton Award of the Occupational Health and Safety Section of the American Public Health Association. Deeg worked for more than 20 years for the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health (Cal/OSHA) as a field compliance officer, senior industrial hygienist, and then became the agency's Deputy Chief for Health. Prior to joining Cal/OSHA, Deeg Gold was a rank-and-file worker health and safety activist in her union. She is also an activist on many social justice issues, including opposing the death penalty and is a queer activist. This article is Deeg’s award acceptance speech.

Organizing for Better Lives

Todd Jailer, Miriam Lara-Meloy, and Maggie Robbins, The Workers' Guide to Health and Safety (Berkely, CA: Hesperian, 2015), 576 pages, $34.95, paperback.The new Workers' Guide to Health and Safety—with drawings on every page—is a fun read, which is an unusual thing to say about a book with such a serious intent. Garrett Brown, an industrial hygienist with decades of experience as an inspector and activist in California, Mexico, and Bangladesh, claimed with some justification that of all the books on occupational health and safety, "almost none…are accessible to workers or their organizations." The Workers' Guide is the first major book aimed at organizing for healthier conditions in the labor-intensive export industries of countries like Bangladesh and China, Mexico's maquiladora frontier, in Central America and Southeast Asia, and even in the United States itself, where for many, working and living conditions are being beaten down.Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.