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Activity Number:
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143
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Type:
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Invited
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Date/Time:
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Monday, August 3, 2009 : 10:30 AM to 12:20 PM
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Sponsor:
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Section on Risk Analysis
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| Abstract - #302762 |
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Title:
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Out of Sight, Out of Mind: The Statistical Whitewashing of Chronic Occupational Disease
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Author(s):
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Adam M. Finkel*+
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Companies:
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University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey
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Address:
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683 Hoes Lane West, Piscataway, NJ, 08854,
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Keywords:
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occupational health ; risk assessment ; uncertainty
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Abstract:
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Approximately 40,000 U.S. workers die prematurely each year from work-related causes. Although more than 80 percent of these fatalities stem from chronic disease rather than from acute accidents, the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) devotes roughly 90 percent of its standard-setting, enforcement, and data-collection resources to the latter problem. OSHA has also tried to keep from public view its database of nearly 3 million analytic measurements of workplace contaminants; I recently prevailed in litigation under the Freedom of Information Act to free up this database. I will: (1) present preliminary insights from the database about the extent of overexposures to toxic substances; (2) discuss temporal, geographic, and other trends in these data; and (3) summarize the federal response to old and emerging occupational health problems.
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- The address information is for the authors that have a + after their name.
- Authors who are presenting talks have a * after their name.
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