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Public Interest Lost

in The People's Agents and the Battle to Protect the American Public: Special Interests, Government, and Threats to Health, Safety, and the Environment

The fundamental principle—that government has a vital role to play in protecting people from harm—could lead to endless arguments in the arena of traditional social welfare programs over exactly when ... More

The fundamental principle—that government has a vital role to play in protecting people from harm—could lead to endless arguments in the arena of traditional social welfare programs over exactly when individual people cannot help themselves. But in the arena of protecting health, safety, and the environment, it is a serviceable, working proposition: when the threats are polluted urban air, dangerous drugs, and unsafe workplaces, individuals need government because control over the threat lies with someone else. This chapter introduces the five most important federal “protector agencies” created to shoulder these responsibilities—the Consumer Product Safety Commission, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Food and Drug Administration, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.Less

The Roles of Government in Protecting and Promoting Occupational and Environmental Health

Gregory R. Wagner and Emily A. Spieler

in Occupational and Environmental Health

This chapter discusses the roles of government in promoting occupational and environmental health, with a focus on the U.S. federal government. Governmental interventions, as described here, can ... More

This chapter discusses the roles of government in promoting occupational and environmental health, with a focus on the U.S. federal government. Governmental interventions, as described here, can range from non-regulatory interventions, such as dissemination of information or generation and communication of information, to establishing regulatory requirements through the promulgation and enforcement of standards and regulations. The chapter describes the U.S. laws and roles of the administrative agencies responsible for occupational and environmental health, including the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the Mine Safety and Health Administration, and the Environmental Protection Agency. Noting the budgetary and political constraints on these federal agencies, the chapter goes on to discuss briefly the role of the public and the states. The government also plays a role when preventive efforts fail, and the chapter provides a brief summary of programs designed to provide compensation to injured workers.Less

A Prejudice Which May Cloud the Mentality: The Making of Objectivity in Early Twentieth-Century Occupational Health

Christopher Sellers

in Silent Victories: The History and Practice of Public Health in Twentieth Century America

Today, environmental health professionals assess hazards in the workplace or the outside air by comparing sampled levels against official Threshold Limit Values (TLV's). But before today's reliance ... More

Today, environmental health professionals assess hazards in the workplace or the outside air by comparing sampled levels against official Threshold Limit Values (TLV's). But before today's reliance on quantitative tools for correlating atmospheric chemical levels to disease, industrial health practices were neither primitive nor unscientific. Medical and scientific researchers wrote at once for physicians or hygienists and for those without scientific training. Their knowledge itself remained closely tied to preventive interventions as well to curative ones. A quantitative chemical approach to occupational disease took shape following World War I, with the advent of a new community of experts, centered in the public health schools, in company medical clinics and in state divisions of industrial hygiene.Less

Occupational Safety And Health

Andrea Kidd Taylor and Linda Rae Murray

in Social Injustice and Public Health

This chapter addresses social injustice in relation to occupational safety and health. It provides an historic overview and discussion of the scope of the problem, a discussion of income inequalities ... More

This chapter addresses social injustice in relation to occupational safety and health. It provides an historic overview and discussion of the scope of the problem, a discussion of income inequalities in the United States, and various ways in which social injustice impacts on occupational safety and health. A box in the chapter describes the adverse impacts of economic globalization. The chapter describes what needs to be done, including educating workers, empowering communities, preventing discrimination, promoting workplace democracy and environmental justice, improving surveillance and research, reforming OSHA and workers' compensation, and promoting the role of organized labor.Less

Occupational Health and Safety

Linda Rae Murray

in Social Injustice and Public Health

Social injustice in the workplace is demonstrated by health disparities and by disproportionate representation of workers of color in the most hazardous jobs. It is also demonstrated by the lack of ... More

Social injustice in the workplace is demonstrated by health disparities and by disproportionate representation of workers of color in the most hazardous jobs. It is also demonstrated by the lack of workplace democracy. It reflects injustice in other spheres of society. This chapter describes social injustice regarding occupational health and safety in both historical and present-day contexts. It also describes other issues, such as the impact of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), a theoretical framework for health inequities, income disparities in the United States, unemployment and job insecurity, and issues related to gender, race, ethnicity, and class. It then describes social injustice issues related to prison labor, child labor, and immigrant workers. The chapter addresses what needs to be done, including educating workers and communities, addressing structural racism and preventing discrimination, promoting workplace democracy, improving surveillance and research, and reforming OSHA and workers’ compensation. A text box addresses economic globalization: austerity, income inequality, and corporate control.Less

Unequal Exposures

Susanna Rankin Bohme

in Toxic Injustice: A Transnational History of Exposure and Struggle

In 1977, California chemical production workers publicly linked their sterility to DBCP exposure. Responses to these complaints increased the inequalities in exposure among workers, even as controls ... More

In 1977, California chemical production workers publicly linked their sterility to DBCP exposure. Responses to these complaints increased the inequalities in exposure among workers, even as controls were strengthened. Industrial workers received stronger protections than farmworkers in the United States. In Central America, Standard Fruit continued unsafe use on bananas. Costa Rican officials, facing sterility in banana workers there, quietly told Standard to cease use. Amvac began production in United States and Mexico to meet continued demand elsewhere. While farmworkers urged the EPA to end DBCP use, it was water contamination that led to the cancellation of most DBCP use in the United States by 1980. U.S. regulations never forbade the export of DBCP; it was eventually the withdrawal of residue regulations that ended DBCP use on bananas.Less

Challenges Anew

D. Clayton Brown

in King Cotton in Modern America: A Cultural, Political, and Economic History since 1945

This chapter considers the various challenges faced by the cotton industry. These include occupational illnesses such as byssinosis, or brown lung disease, which affects workers in cotton textile ... More

This chapter considers the various challenges faced by the cotton industry. These include occupational illnesses such as byssinosis, or brown lung disease, which affects workers in cotton textile mills; the creation of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) in 1970; the lobbying power of cotton; the impact of rise of the environmentalism; and urban sprawl.Less

The Judiciary

in The People's Agents and the Battle to Protect the American Public: Special Interests, Government, and Threats to Health, Safety, and the Environment

This chapter begins with a discussion of cases involving the Occupational Safety and Health Administration's attempts to regulate toxic chemical exposures in the workplace, in order to illustrate the ... More

This chapter begins with a discussion of cases involving the Occupational Safety and Health Administration's attempts to regulate toxic chemical exposures in the workplace, in order to illustrate the harm caused by unwarranted judicial interference. Next, it explains the evidence demonstrating judicial bias. It examines the incentives that motivate judges to discover why such bias arises. It discusses how ideological judging creates regulatory dysfunction. The chapter concludes with a series of recommendations for arresting these trends by defining the appropriate role of judges as last-resort or “border patrol” overseers.Less

Defending Enterprise

Jefferson Decker

in The Other Rights Revolution: Conservative Lawyers and the Remaking of American Government

By the early 1970s, the growth of the regulatory state and the emergence of public-interest law began to worry prominent conservatives in the legal profession and business community. In 1971, ... More

By the early 1970s, the growth of the regulatory state and the emergence of public-interest law began to worry prominent conservatives in the legal profession and business community. In 1971, attorney (and future Supreme Court justice) Lewis Powell wrote a strategy memo for the United States Chamber of Commerce and warned that the “free enterprise system” was in serious danger. Powell urged the chamber to invest time and money countering the public-interest left—in politics and public opinion and also in the courts. Meanwhile, in Pocatello, Idaho, a business-owner teamed up with a group of lawyers to try to take on the regulatory state. When an agent of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration paid a surprise visit to the shop of plumber Bill Barlow, Barlow demanded to see a search warrant. His resistance led to a lawsuit, which went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court and offered a new model for resisting liberalism through litigation.Less