What Is NIEHS Doing?

Supporting grantees across the country. NIEHS has a long history of funding grants in toxicology and environmental health sciences. For example researchers supported through the NIEHS Division of Extramural Research and Training are working to develop new and improved models of toxicity that can help predict cancer and other adverse health outcomes that may result from fetal or early life exposures.

For example, because we know that people are exposed to a multitude of environmental toxicants, NIEHS grantees are working to understand the implications of chemical mixtures, which can sometimes produce health affects greater than each chemical would alone.

Grantees have published some of the first immunotoxic studies linking childhood exposures to perfluorinated compounds (PFCs) with immune system deficiency.

NIEHS supported researchers have also used their toxicology expertise to improve our knowledge and our approaches to chemicals such as arsenic, leady and mercury.

Also, grantees are active participants in our nanotechnology efforts, where we are working to increase our understanding of how engineered nanomaterials interact with living systems, so we can develop predictive models for quantifying exposure from nanomaterials and are able to assess their health impacts. These efforts will help guide the design of second-generation engineered nanomaterials and minimize adverse health effects.

Also, the NIEHS Superfund Research Program works to gain a better understanding of how toxicants affect human health in order to help environmental managers and risk assessors protect the public from exposures to hazardous substances. They accomplish this through research conducted at universities across the country, to develop cost-effective approaches to detect, remove, and/or reduce the amount of toxic substances found in the environment. The program conducts research on remediation, detection, and monitoring tools or strategies and also funds studies that relate to multiple disease endpoints such as cardiovascular disease, cancer, and neurological disorders.^[1]

Irradiated Foods

Irradiation does not make foods radioactive, compromise nutritional quality, or noticeably change the taste, texture, or appearance of food. In fact, any changes made by irradiation are so minimal that it is not easy to tell if a food has been irradiated.

Food irradiation (the application of ionizing radiation to food) is a technology that improves the safety and extends the shelf life of foods by reducing or eliminating microorganisms and insects. Like pasteurizing milk and canning fruits and vegetables, irradiation can make food safer for the consumer. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is responsible for regulating the sources of radiation that are used to irradiate food. The FDA approves a source of radiation for use on foods only after it has determined that irradiating the food is safe.

Why Irradiate Food?

Irradiation can serve many purposes.

• Prevention of Foodborne Illness – to effectively eliminate organisms that cause foodborne illness, such as Salmonella and Escherichia coli (E. coli).
• Preservation – to destroy or inactivate organisms that cause spoilage and decomposition and extend the shelf life of foods.
• Control of Insects – to destroy insects in or on tropical fruits imported into the United States. Irradiation also decreases the need for other pest-control practices that may harm the fruit.
• Delay of Sprouting and Ripening – to inhibit sprouting (e.g., potatoes) and delay ripening of fruit to increase longevity.
• Sterilization – irradiation can be used to sterilize foods, which can then be stored for years without refrigeration. Sterilized foods are useful in hospitals for patients with severely impaired immune systems, such as patients with AIDS or undergoing chemotherapy. Foods that are sterilized by irradiation are exposed to substantially higher levels of treatment than those approved for general use.

Did you know?

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) astronauts eat meat that has been sterilized by irradiation to avoid getting foodborne illnesses when they fly in space.

How Is Food Irradiated?

There are three sources of radiation approved for use on foods.

• Gamma rays are emitted from radioactive forms of the element cobalt (Cobalt 60) or of the element cesium (Cesium 137). Gamma radiation is used routinely to sterilize medical, dental, and household products and is also used for the radiation treatment of cancer.
• X-rays are produced by reflecting a high-energy stream of electrons off a target substance (usually one of the heavy metals) into food. X-rays are also widely used in medicine and industry to produce images of internal structures.
• Electron beam (or e-beam) is similar to X-rays and is a stream of high-energy electrons propelled from an electron accelerator into food.

Is Irradiated Food Safe to Eat?

The FDA has evaluated the safety of irradiated food for more than 30 years and has found the process to be safe. The World Health Organization (WHO), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) have also endorsed the safety of irradiated food.

The FDA has approved a variety of foods for irradiation in the United States including:

• Beef and Pork
• Crustaceans (e.g., lobster, shrimp, and crab)
• Fresh Fruits and Vegetables
• Lettuce and Spinach
• Poultry
• Seeds for Sprouting (e.g., for alfalfa sprouts)
• Shell Eggs
• Shellfish – Molluscan
  (e.g., oysters, clams, mussels, and scallops)
• Spices and Seasonings

How Will I Know if My Food Has Been Irradiated?

The FDA requires that irradiated foods bear the international symbol for irradiation. Look for the Radura symbol along with the statement “Treated with radiation” or “Treated by irradiation” on the food label. Bulk foods, such as fruits and vegetables, are required to be individually labeled or to have a label next to the sale container. The FDA does not require that individual ingredients in multi-ingredient foods (e.g., spices) be labeled. It is important to remember that irradiation is not a replacement for proper food handling practices by producers, processors, and consumers. Irradiated foods need to be stored, handled, and cooked in the same way as non-irradiated foods, because they could still become contaminated with disease-causing organisms after irradiation if the rules of basic food safety are not followed.^[2]

Blood Brain Barrier and how it works

This video explains how the process works.

Occupational Health and Safety

safety and health practices. Voluntary Protection Programs (VPP) – The VPP recognize employers and workers in private industry and federal agencies who have implemented effective safety and health management programs and maintain injury and illness rates below the national average for their respective industries. In VPP, management, labor, and OSHA work cooperatively and proactively to prevent fatalities, injuries, and illnesses.

Information and Education OSHA Training Institute

The OSHA Training Institute (OTI) Education Centers are a national network of nonprofit organizations authorized by OSHA to deliver occupational safety and health training to private sector workers, supervisors, and employers.

Educational Materials

OSHA has a variety of educational materials and electronic tools available on its website at These include utilities such as expert advisors, electronic compliance assistance, videos and other information for employers and workers. OSHA’s software programs and eTools walk you through safety and health issues and common problems to find the best solutions for your workplace.

OSHA’s extensive publications help explain OSHA standards, job hazards, and mitigation strategies and provide assistance in developing effective safety and health programs.

QuickTakes

OSHA’s free, twice-monthly online newsletter, QuickTakes, offers the latest news about OSHA initiatives and products to assist employers and workers in finding and preventing workplace hazards.

Who Does OSHA Cover: Private Sector Workers

OSHA covers most private sector employers and workers in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and other U.S. jurisdictions either directly through Federal OSHA or through an OSHA-approved state program. State-run safety and health programs must be at least as effective as the Federal OSHA program.

State and Local Government Workers State and local government workers are not covered by Federal OSHA, but they do have protections in states that operate their own programs. The following states have approved state programs: AK, AZ, CA, CT, HI, IA, IL, IN, KY, MD, MI, MN, NC, NJ, NM, NV, NY, OR, SC, TN, UT, VA, VT, WA, WY, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. Connecticut, Illinois, New Jersey, New York and the Virgin Islands programs cover public sector (state and local government) workers only. Federal OSHA covers private sector workers in these jurisdictions.

Federal Government Workers

OSHA’s protection applies to all federal agencies. Although OSHA does not fine federal agencies, it does monitor federal agencies and responds to workers’ complaints.

Not Covered by the OSH Act:

Self-employed workers; and workplace hazards regulated by another federal agency (for example, the Mine Safety and Health Administration, the Department of Energy, or Coast Guard).^[3]

The Triangle Waist Company Fire^[4]

The Triangle Waist Company was in many ways a typical sweated factory in the heart of Manhattan, at 23-29 Washington Place, at the northern corner of Washington Square East. Low wages, excessively long hours, and unsanitary and dangerous working conditions were the hallmarks of sweatshops.Even though many workers toiled under one roof in the Asch building, owned by Max Blanck and Isaac Harris, the owners subcontracted much work to individuals who hired the hands and pocketed a portion of the profits. Subcontractors could pay the workers whatever rates they wanted, often extremely low. The owners supposedly never knew the rates paid to the workers, nor did they know exactly how many workers were employed at their factory at any given point. Such a system led to exploitation.Even today, sweatshops have not disappeared in the United States. They keep attracting workers in desperate need of employment and undocumented immigrants, who may be anxious to avoid involvement with governmental agencies. Recent studies conducted by the U.S. Department of Labor found that 67% of Los Angeles garment factories and 63% of New York garment factories violate minimum wage and overtime laws. Ninety-eight percent of Los Angeles garment factories have workplace health and safety problems serious enough to lead to severe injuries or death.The International Ladies’ Garment Workers Union organized workers in the women’s clothing trade. Many of the garment workers before 1911 were unorganized, partly because they were young immigrant women intimidated by the alien surroundings. Others were more daring, though. All were ripe for action against the poor working conditions. In 1909, an incident at the Triangle Factory sparked a spontaneous walkout of its 400 employees. The Women’s Trade Union League, a progressive association of middle class white women, helped the young women workers picket and fence off thugs and police provocation. At a historic meeting at Cooper Union, thousands of garment workers from all over the city followed young Clara Lemlich’s call for a general strike.With the cloakmakers’ strike of 1910, a historic agreement was reached, that established a grievance system in the garment industry. Unfortunately for the workers, though, many shops were still in the hands of unscrupulous owners, who disregarded basic workers’ rights and imposed unsafe working conditions on their employees.

Near closing time on Saturday afternoon, March 25, 1911, a fire broke out on the top floors of the Asch Building in the Triangle Waist Company. Within minutes, the quiet spring afternoon erupted into madness, a terrifying moment in time, disrupting forever the lives of young workers. By the time the fire was over, 146 of the 500 employees had died. The survivors were left to live and relive those agonizing moments. The victims and their families, the people passing by who witnessed the desperate leaps from ninth floor windows, and the City of New York would never be the same.

Survivors recounted the horrors they had to endure, and passers-by and reporters also told stories of pain and terror they had witnessed. The images of death were seared deeply in their mind’s eye.

Many of the Triangle factory workers were women, some as young as 14 years old. They were, for the most part, recent Italian and European Jewish immigrants who had come to the United States with their families to seek a better life. Instead, they faced lives of grinding poverty and horrifying working conditions. As recent immigrants struggling with a new language and culture, the working poor were ready victims for the factory owners. For these workers, speaking out could end with the loss of desperately needed jobs, a prospect that forced them to endure personal indignities and severe exploitation. Some turned to labor unions to speak for them; many more struggled alone. The Triangle Factory was a non-union shop, although some of its workers had joined the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union.

New York City, with its tenements and loft factories, had witnessed a growing concern for issues of health and safety in the early years of the 20th century. Groups such as the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union (ILGWU) and the Womens’ Trade Union League (WTUL) fought for better working conditions and protective legislation. The Triangle Fire tragically illustrated that fire inspections and precautions were woefully inadequate at the time. Workers recounted their helpless efforts to open the ninth floor doors to the Washington Place stairs. They and many others afterwards believed they were deliberately locked– owners had frequently locked the exit doors in the past, claiming that workers stole materials. For all practical purposes, the ninth floor fire escape in the Asch Building led nowhere, certainly not to safety, and it bent under the weight of the factory workers trying to escape the inferno. Others waited at the windows for the rescue workers only to discover that the firefighters’ ladders were several stories too short and the water from the hoses could not reach the top floors. Many chose to jump to their deaths rather than to burn alive.

In the weeks that followed, the grieving city identified the dead, sorted out their belongings, and reeled in numbed grief at the atrocity that could have been averted with a few precautions. The International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union proposed an official day of mourning. The grief-stricken city gathered in churches, synagogues, and finally, in the streets.

Protesting voices arose, bewildered and angry at the lack of concern and the greed that had made this possible. The people demanded restitution, justice, and action that would safeguard the vulnerable and the oppressed. Outraged cries calling for action to improve the unsafe conditions in workshops could be heard from every quarter, from the mainstream conservative to the progressive and union press.

Workers flocked to union quarters to offer testimonies, support mobilization, and demand that Triangle owners Harris and Blanck be brought to trial. The role that strong unions could have in helping prevent such tragedies became clear. Workers organized in powerful unions would be more conscious of their rights and better able to obtain safe working conditions.

Shortly after the fire, the Executive Board of the Ladies’ Waist and Dress Makers’ Union, Local No. 25 of the ILGWU, (the local to which some of the Triangle factory workers belonged), met to plan relief work for the survivors and the families of the victims. Soon several progressive organizations came forward to help with the relief effort. Representatives from the Women’s Trade Union League, the Workmen’s Circle (Arbeiter Ring), the Jewish Daily Forward, and the United Hebrew Trades formed the Joint Relief Committee, which, over the course of the next months, allotted lump sums, often to be remitted abroad, to Russia or Italy.

In addition, its Executive Committee distributed weekly pensions, supervised and cared for the young workers and children placed in institutions of various kinds, and secured work and proper living arrangements for the workers after they recuperated from their injuries.

The Joint Relief Committee worked together with the American Red Cross, which also collected funds from the general public. Estimates indicate that the Joint Relief Committee alone administered about $30,000.

Immediately after the fire, Triangle owners Blanck and Harris declared in interviews that their building was fireproof, and that it had just been approved by the Department of Buildings. Yet the call for bringing those responsible to justice and reports that the doors of the factory were locked at the time of the fire prompted the District Attorney’s office to seek an indictment against the owners. On April 11, a grand jury indicted Harris and Blanck on seven counts, charging them with manslaughter in the second degree under section 80 of the Labor Code, which mandated that doors should not be locked during working hours.

Justice?

On December 27, twenty-three days after the trial had started, a jury acquitted Blanck and Harris of any wrong doing. The task of the jurors had been to determine whether the owners knew that the doors were locked at the time of the fire.

Customarily, the only way out for workers at quitting time was through an opening on the Green Street side, where all pocketbooks were inspected to prevent stealing. Worker after worker testified to their inability to open the doors to their only viable escape route, the stairs to the Washington Place exit, because the Greene Street side stairs were completely engulfed by fire. More testimony supported this fact. Yet the brilliant defense attorney Max Steuer planted enough doubt in the jurors’ minds to win a not-guilty verdict. Grieving families and much of the public felt that justice had not been done. “Justice!” they cried. “Where is justice?”

Twenty-three individual civil suits were brought against the owners of the Asch building. On March 11, 1914, three years after the fire, Harris and Blanck settled. They paid 75 dollars per life lost.

Harris and Blanck were to continue their defiant attitude toward the authorities. Just a few days after the fire, the new premises of their factory had been found not to be fireproof, without fire escapes, and without adequate exits.

In August of 1913, Max Blanck was charged with locking one of the doors of his factory during working hours. Brought to court, he was fined twenty dollars, and the judge apologized to him for the imposition.

In December of 1913, the interior of his factory was found to be littered with rubbish piled six feet high, with scraps kept in non-regulation, flammable wicker baskets. This time, instead of a court appearance and a fine, he was served a stern warning. The Triangle Waist Company was to cease operations in 1918, but the owners maintained throughout that their factory was a “model of cleanliness and sanitary conditions,” and that it was “second to none in the country.”

Sunshine Mine Disaster Kellogg Idaho

The day shift on the morning of May 2, 1972, included 173 men. Around 11:40 a.m., smoke was discovered coming from the 910 raise on the 3700 level. As the smoke spread rapidly throughout the mine, the No. 10 shaft foreman ordered an evacuation at about 12:03 p.m. Men were hoisted from the lower levels to the 3100 level, where they were directed to make their way to the Jewell Shaft. Yet, hoisting stopped at 1:02 p.m. after the hoistman was overcome by smoke and carbon monoxide. Many of the men who reached the 3100 level were also overcome. Of the 173 men in the mine at the time of the fire, 80 were able to evacuate, with the last one reaching the surface by 1:30 p.m. Two men, able to find a safe zone on the 4800 level near the No. 12 borehole, were rescued 175 hours later. The remaining 91 men died of carbon monoxide poisoning. Besides the 31 victims found on the 3100 level, 21 were found on the 5200 level, 16 on 3700, 7 on 4400, 7 on 4800, 4 on 3400, 3 on 4200, and 2 on 5000.  (Photo of Memorial Statue ^[5])

The mine was closed for seven months after the fire, one of the worst mining disasters in American history, and the worst disaster in Idaho history. Today, a monument to the lost miners stands besides Interstate 90 near the mine. (Photo

Following the May 1972 disaster when the mine re-opened and full production resumed, the Sunshine regained its position as the number one silver producer in the Nation. In 1979 alone, Sunshine Mine produced 18% of the Nation’s silver ore.  By the end of 1988, the mine was at full production. Ore production was primarily from mining the Chester vein systems serviced by the No. 10 shaft and the remnants of the Sunshine and Rambo vein stopes referred to as the Footwall area on the 3700 and 3400 levels. The 4000 and 4200 level Copper vein was under development from the No. 12 shaft.^[6]

(Photo ^[7] of plaque remember those that died in the fire)

Black Lung Disease