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A Marion, Ohio, company that bills itself as the "World's Largest Manufacturer of Beryllium Copper Plunger Tips" has been charged by U.S. OSHA with repeat violations of standards to protect workers from overexposure to beryllium. OSHA says it opened its inspection in October 2007 to determine if the company had corrected safety hazards found during a 2005 inspection. According to OSHA, the company had not righted the problems.

The safety and health community shouldn't hold out hope for the long-sought beryllium exposure standard to be issued by OSHA in the final days of the Bush administration. The latest Department of Labor semiannual regulatory agenda, which was published this week, lists one more step in its evolution - a March 2009 completion of a peer review of health effects and risk assessment - but nothing further, such as an NPRM. The agency says it has been working on this rule for more than six years. In 1999 and 2001, the Paper Allied-Industrial, Chemical, and Energy Workers Union, Public Citizen Health Research Group, and others petitioned OSHA to regulate worker exposures to beryllium via an emergency temporary standard.

In the latest issue of the journal Public Health Reports, there is debate about the role that beryllium giant Brush Wellman played in stalling OSHA action on beryllium, and whether Brush waged a public relations campaign to minimize the hazards of the toxic metal. In an article in the January-February 2008 issue of Public Health Reports, David Michaels and Celeste Monforton of the Project on Scientific Knowledge and Public Policy (SKAPP) explored how the beryllium industry fought efforts to lower workplace beryllium exposure limits, first by the Department of Energy (DOE) and then by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). In "Beryllium's Public Relations Problem: Protecting Workers When There is No Safe Exposure Level," Michaels and Monforton criticized Brush Wellman for its efforts to prevent these agencies from lowering exposure limits for beryllium.

I got a press release this week from the Dept. of Labor, announcing that it was continuing its Federal Agency Targeting Inspection Program, a program developed in 2008 in response to a GAO report on high-hazard federal workplaces. DOE facilities, of course, have historically been off-limits to outside inspections because of powers granted by the Atomic Energy Act. etc., but I thought maybe this new program was opening things up. When asked for a list of inspection sites and possible Oak Ridge involvement, DOL spokesman Michael Wald responded, "It is OSHA policy not to announce which sites may receive an inspection visit, so we can't identify DOE locations specifically." So, I asked John Shewairy, DOE's public affairs chief in Oak Ridge, if any Oak Ridge facilities had been inspected as part of the FEDTARG program.

Beryllium is a remarkable metal. It is stiffer than steel, lighter than aluminum, and causes chronic beryllium disease at very low levels of exposure. It is also causes cancer in humans. There is no evidence of a safe exposure level. Beryllium has long been employed in nuclear and defense operations, and is now being used in bicycle frames and other consumer products. The current OSHA workplace exposure standard was developed in a 1948 discussion held in the back seat of a taxi by two Atomic Energy Commission scientists - for this reason it is known as the "taxicab standard". This standard is widely acknowledged to be insufficiently protective, and workers exposed to levels below the standard have developed beryllium-related disease.

In the latest issue of the journal Public Health Reports, there is debate about the role that beryllium giant Brush Wellman played in stalling OSHA action on beryllium, and whether Brush waged a public relations campaign to minimize the hazards of the toxic metal.

"Beryllium is making too many people sick at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation. That's according to a group of stakeholders that advises the Department of Energy (DOE) on how to manage the site. Last Friday, the group asked the federal government for an independent review to find out what's going on with the toxic metal at Hanford. The Department of Energy says it actually has stricter standards than OSHA on exposure to beryllium. But many representatives on the Hanford Advisory Board say they are distressed that workers are still getting sick. Beryllium was used to seal nuclear fuel rods during WWII and the Cold War in many buildings throughout the Hanford site. People get sick when they get tiny particles of the metal in their lungs or absorb it through wounds. More than 30 workers have become sick so far. "

Federal agents posing as workers have completed an undercover investigation of the Department of Labor (DOL) that has resulted in claims that the department frequently mishandles serious worker complaints, placing many workers at risk. The outcome of the investigation is detailed in a new report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) that found DOL mishandled nine out of the 10 cases included in the undercover operation. The report, which is scheduled to be released on March 25, found that the agency's Wage and Hour Division (WHD) not only failed to properly investigate wage and hour complaints, but also ignored a complaint that underage children were working at a California meatpacking plant during school hours, a violation of a number of labor laws.