Friday, February 6, 2009

IJOEH Publishes Winter 2009 Issue

The International Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health was just released yesterday. There are no stories on Silicosis or India in the current issue, but there is a pretty excellent study on workplace injury in a Vietnamese workers' commune.

There's also an editorial praising the Big Three American auto companies (Ford, GM, and Crysler) for their efforts to educate workers on the harmful affects of asbestos exposure through brake replacement and manufacture. It's rare to see an OSH editorial praising large corporations for their efforts. This one, of course, is pretty timely given the PR nightmare these companies have been through following the December bailout hearings.

Access to the current issue and the journal's archives are free, but the site does require user registration.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for pointing this out. It's interesting to note that in the article itself, the reviewer makes a merely cursory statement that, gosh, this warning would have been more effective if it talked specifically about how asbestos can lead to the deadly lung cancer mesothelioma.

Yes, when you write a standard "use protection" warning without making clear the direness of the consequences of ignoring it, you're still endangering your workers by omission. Thus, if a worker has never heard of how deadly asbestos can be, he or she will be far less likely to comply in full with warnings.

Seems like a case of too little, too late.