‘Model workplaces’ not always so safe By Chris Hamby July 7, 2011 ‘Model’ workplaces avoid special government scrutiny targeting hazardous industries By Chris Hamby July 11, 2011 Almost 30 years after workplace safety regulators decided to encourage a select number of companies to police themselves, the basic question – does it work? – remains unanswered. […]
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Posted inEnvironment
Diesel dangers: Mining companies get first look at government cancer study
Landmark diesel exhaust study stalled amid industry and congressional objections By Jim Morris February 6, 2012 A long-delayed government epidemiological study of possible ties between diesel exhaust and lung cancer in miners may finally be published this fall — but only after a mining industry group, represented by the Washington lobbying powerhouse Patton Boggs, finishes […]
Posted inWorkers’ Rights
Renegade Refiner: OSHA says BP has “systemic safety problem”
Two refineries owned by oil giant BP account for 97 percent of all flagrant violations found in the refining industry by government safety inspectors over the past three years, a Center for Public Integrity analysis shows. Most of BP’s citations were classified as “egregious willful” by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and reflect alleged […]
Posted inHealth
Thousands of sugar cane workers die as wealthy nations stall on solutions
LA ISLA, Nicaragua — Maudiel Martinez is 19 years old and has a shy smile, a tangle of curly black hair and a lean, muscular build shaped by years of work in the sugarcane fields. For most of his adolescence, he was healthy and strong and spent his days chopping tall stalks of cane with […]
Posted inHealth
Canada resists adding deadly asbestos to toxics blacklist
Exporting an epidemic By Jim Morris July 21, 2010 Canada reinforced its reputation as a public health outcast this week by declining to support the inclusion of asbestos on a toxics blacklist. At a United Nations meeting Wednesday in Geneva, the head of the Canadian delegation stunned other attendees by announcing that Canada opposed the […]
Posted inHealth
Activist asbestos inspector faces threats, industry backlash
The Brockovich of Brazil By Jim Morris July 21, 2010 Tangling with the asbestos industry in Brazil is not for the faint of heart. Federal labor inspector Fernanda Giannasi knows this better than anyone, having endured threats, professional ostracism, and other hardships during her quarter-century fight against mining, manufacturing, and shipping interests in Brazil, the […]
Posted inDangers in the Dust, Health, Public Health
Asbestos test under fire in Japan
TOKYO — For decades, asbestos was considered the “magic mineral” that helped Japan rise from the ashes after World War II. In 1974 alone, the country imported 350,000 metric tons of the fire-resistant fiber for use in residential and commercial buildings, ships, and factories. The mineral turned out to be less than magic. Today, health […]
Posted inHealth
Following the money on asbestos
ICIJ rolled out its biggest project in months this week: Dangers in the Dust — Inside the Global Asbestos Trade. We’ve had a half-dozen of our reporters team up with the BBC’s International News Services, and it’s been a great partnership. Together, we’ve covered eight countries in nine months, from the Russian city of Asbest […]
Posted inHealth
A ravenous appetite for asbestos
For China, it seems, the worst is yet to come. Asbestos wasn’t used extensively in the country until Deng Xiaoping’s reforms in the late 1970s triggered a surge of development. Given the lag time between exposure to asbestos fibers and the onset of disease, health experts say, the country’s prodigious appetite for the mineral will […]
Posted inHealth
The world’s asbestos behemoth
MOSCOW — In the aptly named city of Asbest, in the Ural Mountains 900 miles (1500 km) northeast of Moscow, the dominance of Russia’s asbestos industry — the world’s largest — is on clear display. Just east of the city is the massive open-pit Uralasbest mine. At seven miles (11 km) long and 1-½ miles […]
Posted inHealth
Exporting an epidemic
In Osasco, Brazil, an industrial city on the western flank of Sao Paulo, the past is buried beneath a Wal-Mart Supercenter and a Sam’s Club at the intersection of Avenida MariaCampos and Avenida dos Autonomistas. Here the Eternit asbestos cement factory was shuttered in 1993 and demolished in 1995 after 54 years of operation. Here […]
Posted inDangers in the Dust, Health, Public Health
Key findings
Exporting an epidemic By Jim Morris July 21, 2010 In the fall of 2009, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists began delving into industry efforts in developing countries to promote the use of asbestos — a known carcinogen banned or restricted in 52 countries. During nine months of research, the ICIJ team in partnership with […]
Posted inInequality
Feds investigating possible fraud at GE’s former subprime unit
Federal authorities are investigating possible fraud at General Electric Co.’s former subprime mortgage arm amid increased public pressure to hold Wall Street accountable for its role in the financial crisis. The FBI and the U.S. Justice Department are looking into potentially criminal business practices at Burbank, Calif.-based WMC Mortgage Corp. during the home-loan boom, according […]
Posted inInequality
Whistleblowers ignored, punished by lenders, dozens of former employees say
Darcy Parmer ran into trouble soon after she started her job as a fraud analyst at Wells Fargo Bank. Her bosses, she later claimed, were upset that she was, well, finding fraud. Company officials, she alleged in a lawsuit, berated her for reporting that sales staffers were pushing through mortgage deals based on made-up borrower […]
Posted inInequality
Betting on Justice: Borrowing to sue
Large banks, hedge funds and private investors hungry for new and lucrative opportunities are bankrolling other people’s lawsuits, pumping hundreds of millions of dollars into medical malpractice claims, divorce battles and class actions against corporations — all in the hope of sharing in the potential winnings. The loans are propelling large and prominent cases. Lenders […]
Posted inAccountability
OSHA says inspection program fine-tuned, not ‘shelved’
An Occupational Safety and Health Administration program meant to ferret out employers that under report workplace injuries is honing its focus on more large manufacturing sites, the agency’s No.2 official told reporters today. OSHA has inspected 187 worksites as part of its Recordkeeping National Emphasis Program, finding violations in about half of them, said Jordan […]
Posted inAccountability, Global Muckraking
The Brockovich of Brazil
During an inspection in Sao Paulo, Fernanda Giannasi tells a business owner that she must dispose of illegal asbestos products. Felipe Lima Asbestos gaskets at a small Sao Paulo business. The label reads: “Caution! This product contains asbestos. Do not breathe asbestos dust. The danger is highest for smokers.” Felipe Lima Fernanda Giannasi, second from […]
Posted inShadow Government, The White House
Radiation panel fairness questioned
Fourteen months after the fact, Dr. Henry Anderson and Richard Espinosa say they still aren’t sure why they were removed from the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, a presidential panel that helps the government weigh claims for compensation by current and former nuclear weapons workers. Anderson and Espinosa say they were told only […]
Posted inDemocracy
One House seat in Kentucky embodies how outside groups dominate politics — with money
Screen shot of a Crossroads GPS ad titled “Watch.” YouTube Attack ads in one House race These four ads in Kentucky’s 6th District are examples of the negative campaigning that will dominate the 2012 election cycle: Crossroads GPS ad says Democratic Rep. Ben Chandler voted for “reckless spending” NRCC ad calls Chandler a “lapdog” for […]
Posted inCongress, Democracy, Senate Chairs
Barbara Boxer — Senate Environment and Public Works Committee
Since becoming the first female chair of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee in 2007, California Democrat Barbara Boxer has focused on combating climate change — calling on former Vice President Al Gore to testify, for instance, and advancing a cap-and-trade bill on carbon emissions. In November 2009, Boxer’s committee approved an energy and […]
Posted inDemocracy
House Dems and GOP both claim earmark reform high ground
U.S. House Democrats and Republicans are in the midst of one-upping each other on the issue of earmarks – the very sort of earmarks that were the subject of a major Center investigation, The Murtha Method, last fall. But this time it’s not about which party can insert the most earmarks for pet projects into […]
Posted inEnvironment
The politics of energy: Nuclear power
On May 28, 2003, two chairs sat empty at a Las Vegas hearing called by Nevada’s U.S. senators to assess concerns about the Yucca Mountain Project, which the federal government hopes to turn into a permanent graveyard for the nation’s most lethal nuclear waste. Invited witnesses Bob Clark and Don Harris, auditors on the project, […]
Posted inEnvironment
Bush administration kills safety regulation opposed by donors
WASHINGTON, April 11, 2002 — The Bush administration quietly shelved a proposal to tighten regulations on a group of hazardous chemicals despite evidence linking dozens of deaths and hundreds of injuries to accidents involving those chemicals, an investigation by the Center for Public Integrity has found. At issue in the shelved proposal is a particular […]
Posted inWorkers’ Rights
Regulatory flaws, repeated violations put oil refinery workers at risk
One evening last April at the Tesoro Corp.’s refinery in Anacortes, Washington, Matt Gumbel and six co-workers cautiously returned to service a stack of giant, radiator-like tubes filled with volatile hydrocarbons. The tubes, known as heat exchangers, tended to leak, especially during start-up, and workers sometimes armed themselves with long, steam-spewing lances to keep any […]
Posted inWorkers’ Rights
Use of toxic acid puts millions at risk
How we did this story A worst-case scenario for each refinery is filed by its owner with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Specifically, companies include what’s known as an “Offsite Consequences Analysis,” part of a larger plan that details how they manage myriad risks involved in manufacturing usable fuel from crude oil. The EPA keeps […]
