Wash Your Hands of Chemical Exposures

Posted by Editor on Apr 12, 2011 in content can, content usa, focus on | Comments Off

People are so busy these days that a lunch “break” frequently comes down to gobbling a quick sandwich with one hand while continuing to work with the other hand.

Aside from the stress associated with not taking a proper lunch break away from your workstation, dropping a wrench or taking off your work gloves and then tucking into a sandwich can be hazardous to your health, for these reasons:

• If you have been handling toxic chemicals and they are on your hands, they can easily be transferred to any foods you touch.
• Food left out in the open can become contaminated with chemical fumes, vapors or dusts in the air.

Not only is it potentially hazardous to your health to eat anything without first washing your hands with hot soap and water, you also need to consider that chewing gum, drinking coffee or other beverages, smoking, touching your mouth, nose or eyes, handling contact lenses or applying make-up or lipstick in a chemically contaminated area can also harm you.

Few people would find it safe to place a hand in a chemical solution and touch it to their lips, but touching food after you’ve been handling chemicals isn’t any different.

If you have been handling chemicals while wearing gloves and you believe it’s fine to remove those gloves and eat, drink or smoke without first washing your hands, think again. Contamination on those gloves, whether from handling chemicals, laboratory agents or bloodborne pathogens in a medical setting, can easily be transferred to your hands while removing gloves.

No one needs to be told about the importance of washing their hands with soap and water after using a toilet, but if chemicals or biological agents have touched your hands, you also need to wash your hands before answering nature’s call.

Watch Where You Store Your Lunch

Another mistake workers often make is to store food or drink in refrigerators in which chemicals, drugs or biological agents are also stored. Doing so can easily contaminate food or beverage items. Food should only be kept cool in your lunchroom’s fridge.

Keep these additional chemical handling tips in mind:

• Many people have a habit of licking a finger before turning a page in a book or manual. If you have been handling chemicals you could be placing toxins straight into your mouth.
• Never bring a cup of coffee into an area where hazardous chemicals may be present.
• Chemicals can easily be absorbed through the skin, so it’s important to ensure you are wearing the appropriate gloves and other PPE to prevent such exposures. Wash your hands thoroughly after removing gloves and other PPE and work clothing.
• Never place chemicals in unlabeled containers, such as soda bottles. Unsuspecting workers have taken sips from such containers and suffered serious injuries or died as a result.
• Read the material safety data sheet (MSDS) for every chemical you handle. Learn about the hazards associated with exposure to these agents and know how to protect yourself.

Taking a minute to thoroughly wash your hands with warm, soapy water before eating isn’t just practicing good hygiene. It can prevent serious illness from chemical exposures.

Bed Bugs Increasingly Problematic at Work

Posted by Editor on Apr 12, 2011 in content can, content usa, news you can use | Comments Off

Bed bugs, those small, brownish insects that like to set up home in people’s beds and suck on their blood, are becoming a problem in the workplace, according to University of Kentucky extension entomologist Michael Potter.

He says bed bugs, which are about 3/16ths of an inch long, are showing up in increasing numbers in homes, apartments, healthcare facilities, hotels/motels, office buildings, dormitories, schools, movie theaters and other places where people live, work, play and study.

A recent National Pest Management Association survey found that nearly 20 percent of pest exterminators reported finding bed bugs in US office buildings, as compared to just one percent in 2007.

Potter says the prevalence of bed bugs is probably due to increased immigration and world travel and less effective modern bed bug pesticides.

Someone who has been bitten, most often while asleep, is usually left with itchy, red welts or localized swelling. Bed bug bites are often mistaken for mosquito bites.

“It often seems that bed bugs arise from nowhere. The bugs are efficient hitch-hikers and are usually transported in on luggage, clothing, beds, furniture and other items,” says Potter. “This is a particular problem for hotels, motels and apartments, where turnover of occupants is constant.”

Acquiring used furniture such as couches, chairs or beds is another route for an unintended bed bug infestation at home or work. And workers can and do unknowingly take them to work on their clothing and shoes.

“Once bed bugs are introduced, they often spread throughout a building,” he says. “The bugs can travel from room to room or floor to floor by crawling or via a person.”

A building’s level of cleanliness has little to do with the likelihood of an infestation.

Bed bugs, as their name suggests, are most commonly found in beds. A thorough inspection requires dismantling the bed and standing the pieces on edge. Look for the bugs themselves or dark spots of dried bed bug excrement, especially along mattress seams or along the undersides of box springs.

Furniture such as couches or chairs should also be examined for evidence of bed bugs, including seams, tufts, skirts and crevices. Potter says treating bed bug-contaminated surfaces is difficult and beds or furniture may need to be thrown out. He suggests contacting a reputable exterminator to decide what items are treatable and which require disposal.

“In extreme cases, entire buildings have been fumigated for bed bugs,” says Potter.

Following are some tips for avoiding bed bug infestations:

• Think twice about purchasing used beds or upholstered furniture or picking up free furniture from the curbside.
• Regularly inspect your bedding and furniture for evidence of bed bugs. Caught early, problems are easier to control.
• When staying in hotels/motels, inspect beds for bed bugs, paying special attention to the head of the bed and headboard region. If you find bed bugs, request another room, preferably in another area of the building.
• Store suitcases on hard, elevated surfaces above floor level.
• If you suspect bed bugs have bitten you in a hotel, immediately wash and dry all clothing you are wearing and have brought home.
• Seal cracks and crevices; repair or remove peeling wallpaper; tighten loose light switch covers and seal any openings where pipes, wires or other utilities come into the building.

Women at Greater Risk for Ergonomic Injury

Posted by Editor on Apr 11, 2011 in content can, content usa, focus on | Comments Off

Female workers are more than twice as likely as their male counterparts to suffer ergonomics-related injuries on the job, particularly when not enough attention has been paid to the design of work, equipment, workstations and environment.

Ronald Porter, a physical therapist and ergonomics expert and director of the Back School of Atlanta, says some female-dominated professions, such as healthcare, require moving heavy loads and adopting awkward working positions.

Women are also more likely than men to be performing work that involves repetitive tasks, working at workstations and using tools that were designed for men.

Porter, who addressed the recent American Society of Safety Engineers (ASSE) Professional Development Conference in Baltimore, noted that women represent 46 percent of the US workforce, but report 63 percent of musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) that result in lost work time.

Factors that put women at greater risk for MSDs include:

• An aging workforce,
• A decreased level of physical fitness,
• Increasing work load,
• Obesity, and
• Psychological stresses at work and home.

“Being overweight can contribute to back pain by increasing the wear and damage to joints, causing irritation, pain and reduced activity,” says Porter. “This lack of activity can cause further weight gain.”

Porter noted that other factors that put women at higher risk for MSDS include:

• The fact that job sites and equipment are often not designed for women.
• Women are more sensitive to extreme temperatures than men.
• Motor activities may be more difficult for women.
• Women tend to have less job and task rotation.
• They tend to have fewer work breaks if not in management positions.
• Loud noise.
• Lighting issues.

He says avoiding or limiting strenuous work, work requiring balance, lifting of more than 50 pounds, prolonged sitting or standing, temperature extremes and providing adjustable workstations can help women avoid work-related MSDs.

“Many work areas were designed by men for men. Forty-six percent of our workforce is female. The best place to apply ergonomics principles is during design, not after the issue becomes a problem,” says Porter. “It is must cheaper to build it correctly in the first place than to retrofit.”

PPE for women that will protect them from contract stress can also greatly reduce the chances of an ergonomic-related injury. Such PPE includes floor mats for workers who must stand a lot, shoe inserts and anti-vibration gloves.

Education in neutral postures, correct body mechanics and provision of “ergo breaks” can significantly reduce MSD risk factors for women.

“Instructing supervisors and perhaps even employees to recognize early warning signs of MSDs and how to apply correct first aid can be invaluable in the management process,” says Porter. “Developing appropriately modified or restricted duty jobs or tasks can speed recovery and decrease the likelihood of re-injury upon return to work.”

Africa’s Mining Industry Spreading Tuberculosis

Posted by Editor on Apr 11, 2011 in content can, content usa, news you can use | Comments Off

An international study says that mining for gold, diamonds and precious minerals in sub-Saharan Africa could be driving a tuberculosis epidemic on that continent.

Researchers at Oxford and Brown universities, the University of California and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine estimate that the mining industry may be implicated in 760,000 annual new cases of tuberculosis—a contagious and potentially fatal disease that affects the lungs and other parts of the human body.

The researchers say that silica dust in mines, coupled with crowded working and living conditions and the spread of HIV/AIDS is driving the epidemic.

“Men traveling from afar to work in mines, such as from Botswana to South Africa, are at the greatest risk of getting tuberculosis,” states a news release from the University of Oxford in England. “But their wives, children and friends are also at high risk when miners travel back and forth to work, often many times a year.”

Even if TB is diagnosed in miners and treatment begins, the information frequently does not get back to doctors in the miners’ hometowns. This disruption of treatment poses a major threat of people developing a drug-resistant form of the disease, according to the study’s authors.

“Healthcare programs should emphasize continuity of care as miners travel across borders and miners should undergo routine screening in order to detect TB at an early stage,” states the news release. There’s also a need “to improve poor working conditions and reduce the miners’ exposure to silica dust.”

TB has been on the rise in sub-Saharan Africa during the past two decades, with a doubling of the year incidence from 173 per 100,000 people in 1990 to 351 per 100,000 people in 2007.

Info to go: Read more about tuberculosis by clicking on the Info to Go safety links at www.SafeSupervisor.com

Pick 6

Posted by Editor on Apr 11, 2011 in content can, content usa, pick 6 | Comments Off

Odds of winning the lottery 1 in 135,145,920 (multi-state, mega-millions jackpot)

One-year odds of a person committing suicide: 1 in 9,249 (BookofOdds.com)

4: On average across the US and Canada, 4 times as many men as women commit suicide. (Suicide Information and Education Collection)

11: The US Suicide rate is 11.1 per 100,000 people. (World Health Organization)

13: The suicide rate among Canadians is 13 per 100,000 people. (Centre for Suicide Prevention)

28: Workplace suicides across the US jumped 28 percent in 2008, compared to 2007, with 251 cases reported. (Bureau of Labor Statistics)

45: Suicide rates among 45 to 64-year-olds hit the highest level in a decade in 2007. (US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)

130: Among workplace suicides tracked by the US Department of Labor in 2008, there were 130 involving self-inflicted gunshot wounds.