Panel finds no wrongdoing by building materials manufacturer

• The Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission vacated a citation and fine against Louisiana-Pacific Corp., which had been cited after a worker’s arm was injured when it was caught in a machine at a mill in Thomasville, Alabama.
• The OSHRC said OSHA failed to prove Louisiana-Pacific committed a serious workplace safety violation related to machine guarding and amputation hazards.
• OSHA has issued the citation and a $13,643 penalty after an employee was seriously injured when his arm was caught in a trim waste conveyor.
• The review commission determined there was no evidence supervisors required workers to clean inside that area.
  Read more

Texas leads nation for workers’ deaths

• Texas led the nation in workers who died of injuries suffered on the job in 2021, according to figures kept by the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics and OSHA.
• In addition, two of the 533 Texas workers killed in 2021 were on the job in El Paso.
• OSHA investigates nearly all private-sector workplace deaths and companies have to report deaths to the federal agency within eight hours.
• OSHA investigators work to hold companies accountable for workplace safety, but in many of the death cases assessed penalties are often reduced in negotiations with companies.
  Read more

Kansas worker killed, two others injured

• One man died and two others — all employees of l employees of Red Barn Truck Wash — were hospitalized after being found unconscious inside a tanker trailer at a truck wash in southwest Kansas.
• The three men were all found unconscious inside the tanker trailer.
• They were taken to Southwest Medical Center in Liberal, police said in a news release.
• One of the men died at the hospital, another was taken to a Wichita hospital and the third remained at the medical center.
  Read more

Florida issues warning about vaccine

• • Gov. Ron DeSantis in Jacksonville, Florida, Dr. Joseph Ladapo, that state’s surgeon general, advised people to steer clear of the updated booster vaccine for COVID-19.
  • The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has not yet approved the new vaccine, which is reportedly designed to protect against the BA.2.86 omicron subvariant.
  • “There’s been no clinical trial done in human beings showing that it benefits people” Ladapo said.
  • The state surgeon general urged Floridians to make their own decisions based on their particular “resonance of truth,” rather than on “very educated people telling you what you should think.”
    Read more