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Toxic Workplaces: Bush’s Labor Dept. Ordered to Release Info |
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The Bush Administration’s Department of Labor has been ordered by a federal court in New Jersey to release the results of years of workplace sampling for toxic substances—including the cancer-causing metal beryllium.
The order came from U.S. District Judge Mary Cooper in a ruling last week on a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by Adam Finkel, who served as the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s (OSHA) chief regulator and as a regional administrator from 1995 to 2003. Finkel filed suit in 2005 after OSHA refused to release the results of beryllium tests on agency inspectors who were exposed to the chemical while on the job.
(Click here to read a Nov. 14, 2006, backgrounder on Finkel’s suit at Confined Space.)
Scientific studies show that low levels of exposure to beryllium dust, fumes, metal, metal oxides, ceramics or salts even over a short period of time can result in chronic beryllium disease, lung cancer or skin disease. The lightweight metal is used in aerospace parts, semiconductor chips, jet engine blades and nuclear weapons and reactors.
The Labor Department argued that release of the exposure information would put trade secrets of the companies involved at risk, make it more difficult to inspect companies in the future and invade its inspectors’ privacy. Wrote Judge Cooper:
The Court finds the public interest in disclosing information that will increase understanding about beryllium sensitization and OSHA’s response, thereto, is significant.
The former OSHA official also asked for the entire OSHA database on toxic exposures, more than 2 million analyses conducted during roughly 75,000 OSHA inspections of workplaces since 1979. Finkel told the Associated Press:
Ordinary citizens paid to collect these data, and I look forward to analyzing this public database to help OSHA find its way back to its original mission.
Finkel, now a professor of environmental and occupational health at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey School of Public Health and a visiting professor at Princeton University, said on the website Occupational Hazards that access to the entire toxic exposure database—not just beryllium—offers a chance to study OSHA’s overall performance.
As soon as I shed light on the beryllium [issues], I want to look [at the database] from the point of view of having been at OSHA. And having written some of these rules, I don’t know what I’ll find, but somebody needs to look at it after 30 years and see what the data tells us about whether OSHA has credible program.
The Labor Department said it was still reviewing the decision.
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