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OSHA
Slow to Test Inspectors for Beryllium Exposure, Group Charges
Monday's
federal holiday kept OSHA's offices closed, but the agency no doubt will
answer a damaging claim that "a significant percentage of its
inspectors have become sensitized by exposure to beryllium" because
OSHA was reluctant to screen its own workers' exposures. Monday's Chicago
Tribune carried that report, and Public Employees
for Environmental Responsibility (http://www.peer.org)
accused OSHA of deceptive behavior.
PEER said Adam Finkel was removed from his position as OSHA administrator
for the six-state Rocky Mountain Region in 2003 after protesting an April
2002 decision by Assistant Labor Secretary John L. Henshaw to deny
recommended blood screening tests for employees and not inform potentially
exposed individuals of their exposures and the value of undergoing a blood
test for sensitization. "An agency database OSHA created more than 5
years ago indicates that as many as 1,000 current and former compliance
officers may have been exposed to beryllium levels up to several hundred
times higher than permissible levels," PEER said. "After 18
months of intransigence following Dr. Finkel going public with his
concerns, OSHA finally began a medical monitoring program in April 2004,
but only for its current inspectors. The first results from those
screenings reportedly show that 1.5 percent of the 200 inspectors examined
so far have become sensitized to beryllium." Chronic exposure to
beryllium dust can lead to a potentially fatal lung disease.
"Every American worker who expects OSHA to protect him from hazardous
exposures on the job should take a hard look at how the agency has
abandoned and deceived its own employees exposed to beryllium," PEER
Executive Director Jeff Ruch said Monday. He said Finkel has faculty
positions at Princeton University and the New Jersey University of
Medicine and Dentistry after receiving a financial settlement in return
for withdrawing a whistleblower reprisal complaint against OSHA. "CBD
can be a fast-moving disease, and we hope no sensitized OSHA employee has
progressed to CBD itself during the years of delay after the issue was
first raised." PEER sent a letter Monday asking Labor Secretary
Elaine Chao to determine why it took so long to test inspectors after the
risk was known and why testing has not been extended to former federal
inspectors and active and retired inspectors who work for state OSHA
programs.
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