Federal workplace investigators are doing fewer health inspections despite more worker exposures to toxic and hazardous substances, according to a new analysis from the group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, or PEER.

While workplace exposures are linked to the premature deaths of 10 times more workers than all workplace accidents combined, OSHA now spends less than 5 percent of its limited resources on workplace health protection.

Occupational exposures are the eighth leading cause of death in this country, resulting in more than 40,000 premature deaths per year from cancer, neurological disease, cardiopulmonary disease, and other maladies. Yet OSHA figures show a slump in health sampling that began in 1991. According to the new PEER report:

• The number of exposure measurements taken is few and getting fewer. For the most recent year (2007), OSHA took about 53,000 samples nationwide, whereas it was collecting nearly three times as many samples in 1988, at the end of the Reagan administration;
• At its current rate of health inspections, it would take OSHA about 600 more years to make any chemical exposure measurements at half the nation’s industrial facilities that handle hazardous substances; and
• Obama officials have taken no steps to reverse this trend, and continue to stress targets for the total number of inspections completed. This provides a powerful disincentive for inspectors to conduct toxic-substance sampling, which can take several days to complete, while an inspector can perform several construction safety inspections in a single day.

Chart from PEER, available at http://peer.org/docs/dc/09_24_9_OSHA_sampling_by_year_chart.pdf

The PEER figures are based on a preliminary analysis of an OSHA database obtained by the organization through a federal Freedom of Information Act lawsuit  byAdam Finkel, PEER Board member and former director of health rulemaking for OSHA.

Finkel said:

The EPA has helped to steadily lower the concentrations of toxic substances in our communities and homes, but workers still are allowed to face levels millions of times higher of the very same substances. OSHA must reverse its ‘out of sight, out of mind’ attitude about the most important part of its mission.

Jeff Ruch, executive director of PEER, added:

Workplace exposures have spawned a silent epidemic in America. The health risks in some occupations are so high that your career choice can determine your life expectancy.

This entry was posted on Monday, September 28, 2009 at 10:22 am and is filed under Chemical industry, Worker safety. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.