hummmmmmmm wonder if that also includes Environmental Tobacco Smoke???


Judge orders OSHA to release toxic info



WASHINGTON - A federal judge has ordered the Labor Department to share with the public the results of years of toxic substance sampling in American workplaces. Federal officials said Monday they were reviewing the decision. The decision, by U.S. District Judge Mary L. Cooper, came in a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit by former Labor Department official Adam Finkel, who now is a whistleblower

Finkel was a chief regulator and regional administrator for the Labor Department's Occupational Health and Safety Administration from 1995-2003. He sued the Labor Department in 2005 after they refused to tell him the results of beryllium tests on OSHA inspectors.

Beryllium is a lightweight metal that is used in aerospace components, semiconductor chips, jet engine blades, transistors, nuclear reactors and nuclear weapons. It often is mixed with other metals to form an alloy



Scientists have learned that exposure to low levels of 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.



http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/toxic_workplaces;_ylt=AhXhqcxRK.MsdM.LMo7i_4DMWM0F

I would think there would be a risk of beryllium disease from smoking, only if you buy your cigarettes from China (see today's Wall Street Journal for all the metal poisoning that is and has happened to the people who live there). I'm not so sure that tobacco grown in Russia is any safer.

Just a thought.

I have been dealing with a sick building at work and the situation is sick indeed. Both the landlord and my employer don't want to take any responsibility.

I have learned from other tenants the office suite directly above us had been flooded last winter Jan/Feb/Mar timeframe -- a fact which appears to have been intentionally concealed from me by the same SOB's who had the nerve to lecture me about smoking (because they "wouldn't want me to get cancer" -- like they care, right?).

I have had no choice but to contact our 'enemies' at OSHA; and I have learned the OSHA people are surprisingly not so bad.

In the individual case they display no overt prejudice to smoking or SHS at all. Perhaps it's because these are the people who HAVE seen it all, and they probably know nobody really gets sick from SHS, as compared to many, many other things.

On their website, the part on Indoor Air Quality (Click on the letter i) is a tad stilted regarding SHS, but it's not that bad.

When they do release these documents it could be a plus for our side. Who knows? We may even learn they have never seriously investigated or concluded even one SHS claim.

Just so that you know, in the course of all this I've learned that OSHA testing of IAQ (indoor air quality) is mostly done with voluntary permission from employers/landlords.

The 'laws' with which they work are varied -- I suspect according to the hazard in question. I asked my very sweet OSHA man about cigarette smoke -- and he said this was not one of them.

I'm thinking that maybe the Republican takeover in 1995 may have stunted efforts up to that point to turn OSHA into the Temple of Workplace SHS Religion.

Another interesting point is that I believe Massachusetts, for example, had sick-building and other IAQ standards laws in place before they went after SHS in the 1990's. While in NH where I live now, there are NO state laws whatever governing IAQ's except for the no-smoking restrictions statute which has just been amended to ban it in restaurants and bars too.

Anyway, while a lot of the above is just based on speculation and observation, I'm sure the situation on the ground is no laughing matter. While I certainly hope not, I do fear I may have already been poisoned by whatever it is. Of course, I am also sure I'll be "the smoker" to them if illness does occur as a result.