March: Brain Injury Awareness Month
Gaps in Arizona Highway Safety
Fatal Auto Accidents on the Rise
What Happened to Our Motorcycle Helmet Law?
Help Collect 5000 Blankets for Tucson’s Homeless
Food Safety Tips for the Holidays
Roughly one in six Americans will suffer from a foodborne illness this year.
While preparing your holiday meals, follow the Centers for Disease Control’s (CDC) food preparation safety tips. These steps will help keep bacteria away from food, utensils, and yourself and lessen the chances of food poisoning in your home:
- Wash: Clean hands and surfaces often. Illness-causing bacteria can collect on hands, utensils and surface areas. Also, wash all fruits and vegetables, but not meats.
- Separate: Don’t cross-contaminate foods. Raw meat, poultry, seafood, and eggs can still spread harmful bacteria to ready-to-eat items if they aren’t kept separate. Use one cutting board for fresh produce and another for raw meat, poultry, and seafood.
- Cook: Use a food thermometer to measure the internal temperature of cooked foods. Check temperatures in several places to make sure that meat, poultry, seafood, eggs (or dishes containing eggs) are cooked to safe minimum internal temperatures as shown in the Safe Cooking Temperatures Chart.
- Chill: Illness-causing bacteria can grow in perishable foods in just two hours. Refrigerate foods promptly and properly, and throw out food before it begins to spoil.
For more food safety tips, and some delicious holiday recipes, see the latest online edition of the You Should Know newsletter at http://letamericaknow.com/view_newsletter_ysk.php?memberid=22515&orderid=872&newsletterid=354&issueid=1611&subscriberid=749173
Drug Overdoses Rise along with Drug Company Profits
Deaths from prescription opioids have quadrupled since 1999. At the same time, sales of the drugs quadrupled and drug companies made record profits.
Before the 1990’s opioids were only prescribed for serious painful injuries or pain from cancer. That changed in 1996 when Purdue Pharma introduced OxyContin, an extended-release opioid. The company promoted OxyContin as a less addictive drug suitable for chronic medical conditions like arthritis.
Today, Americans are the biggest prescription opiate users in the world.
In 2014, sales of opioids were an estimated $1.98 billion. Last year, 227 million opioid prescriptions were written in the U.S., making it the most prescribed medication in the country.
Politics plays a role. From 2006 to 2015, drug companies spent $740 million fighting restrictions on the drugs, including lobbying and political contributions. More than $140 million was doled out to political campaigns, including more than $75 million to federal candidates, political action committees and parties.
There is an alarming increase in deaths from drug overdoses in the U.S. More than half of them are related to opioids. According to Public Integrity, the federal government estimates that 165,000 Americans have died from opiate overdose since 2000.
Today, deaths from drug overdoses in the U.S. exceed the number of deaths from motor vehicle accidents.
To learn more about the efforts of pharmaceutical companies to promote the use of opioids and prevent restrictions on the addictive, deadly drugs to https://www.publicintegrity.org/2016/09/19/20201/pro-painkiller-echo-chamber-shaped-policy-amid-drug-epidemic
Nursing Homes Patients Regain Access to the Courts
After November 28, 2016, when you place yourself or a loved one in a nursing home you will no longer be required to sign away your legal rights.
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services) recently issued a rule stating that nursing homes which receive federal funding cannot require future residents to agree to settle disputes through binding arbitration rather than a lawsuit.
Pre-dispute arbitration clauses in nursing home contracts shield nursing homes from liability for claims involving neglect, abuse, harassment, assault, and wrongful death. Arbitration is a secretive and privatized justice system that favors corporations. A 2009 study commissioned by the American Health Care Association, which represents most nursing homes, found the average awards after arbitration were 35 percent lower than if the plaintiff had gone to court.
This is the first major overhaul of the federal nursing home policy in 25 years.
The new rule also includes expanded regulations regarding food, medical treatment, and personnel requirements for long-term care facilities. Nursing homes are now required to provide “nourishing, palatable” food for residents and develop a care plan for each resident within 48 hours of their admission to the facility.
Consumer protection groups hope that the rule is a step toward ending pre-dispute arbitration clauses used by other corporations and institutions that receive government support, including banks.
For the Wells Fargo Bank customers who had other accounts opened in their names, the pre-dispute arbitration clauses they signed when they opened their real accounts were deemed to apply to the fraudulent accounts as well, so the defrauded customers have been denied access to the courts.
To learn more about the new rule visit http://www.nytimes.com/topic/subject/nursing-homes or http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/09/29/495918132/new-rule-preserves-patients-rights-to-sue-nursing-homes-in-court
Help Motorists See You When Riding Your Bike
80% of bike accidents and cycling injuries happen during the daylight hours.
Trek bicycle company supported a research project by Clemson University’s Perceptual Awareness Department to determine how cyclists can be safer on the road by making themselves more visible to motorists during the day AND at night.
The university researchers developed guidelines called the ABCs of Awareness to help increase cyclist detectability by motorists. The statistics below indicate the significant impact that following these guidelines can have on cyclist safety.
- ALWAYS ON
- Always use running lights – during the day and at night. And use both front and rear lights. Daytime running lights on a bike reduces collisions by 33%.
- BIOMOTION
- Wear clothing that highlights your body’s moving parts (legs, ankles, feet, pedals). High visibility gear makes you more recognizable as a human and less likely to be overlooked by a motorist. Cyclists who draw attention to moving parts are up to 83% more noticeable.
- CONTRAST
- Incorporate clothing and gear that contrasts with the environment. Wear fluorescent cycling clothes during the day and reflective clothing at night. Incorporate both reflective and fluorescent components on your bike. Donning fluorescent materials during the day decreases the risk of an incident by as much as 53%. Reflective gear at night makes you 72% more noticeable.
To learn more visit http://www.trekbikes.com/us/en_US/abcs_of_awareness/
References for the statistics above can be found at http://s7d4.scene7.com/is/content/TrekBicycleProducts/Asset%20Library/non-product/editorial-assets/abcs/ABCs_of_Awareness_References.pdf
Asbestos Dangers Still Lurk in the US
According to the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), any building built before 1981 is presumed to contain asbestos. Asbestos is very dangerous because it has the ability to break down into microscopically thin fibers that if breathed in can lodge deep in a person’s lungs. The lodged fibers can cause serious diseases, including lung cancer, asbestosis (a scarring of the lung tissue) and mesothelioma (cancer of the lining of the lung cavity). According to the Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization (ADAO), 15,000 U.S. citizens die each year from asbestos-related diseases.
Asbestos has been used as an insulating material for hundreds of years because its fibers are strong, resistant to heat and many chemicals, and don’t conduct electricity. The Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) of 1976 regulated the production, importation, use, and disposal of asbestos until June 2016, when President Obama signed into law the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act. This bipartisan bill amended and updated the outmoded TSCA to include stricter regulatory standards and replaced TSCA’s cost-benefit safety standard with a new health-based safety standard. This new standard opens the doors for the EPA to officially ban asbestos in the U.S., something it has been trying to do since the first Bush administration.
The most recent Let America Know newsletter delves into the dangers of asbestos and offers the following suggestions on how to minimize your risk to exposure:
At School and Public Buildings
About half of all schools in the United States were built from 1950 to 1969, when asbestos was a common construction material. The EPA requires all schools to inspect any asbestos-containing materials every three years, as well as have an asbestos management plan in place. You can request to see a school’s management plan at any time. In addition, you can keep an eye out for any possible asbestos-containing materials, including:
- Damaged drywall or plaster
- Deteriorated tiles, roofing or ceiling panels
- Chipped paint
- Old heating or A/C
- Run-down steam pipes or boiler insulation
At Home:
Most asbestos exposure occurs when homeowners do renovations that disturb asbestos. If you’re planning on tackling any home improvement projects.
- Some of the in-home items that may contain asbestos are: attic insulation, shingles, tar, drywall, and popcorn ceilings.
- If you have an older home, don’t perform DIY renovations where asbestos may be present.
- Never attempt to remove asbestos without help from a professional abatement specialist.
- Dangerous exposure may occur when you attempt to remove contaminated products, especially if you cut, saw, sand, or drill them.
At Work:
Your employer should be following all OSHA regulations for hazardous chemicals, but be sure to take your own precautions and report any unsafe working conditions.
- Ask your employer about any asbestos-related health risks in your place of work.
- Always wear protective gear when you may disturb asbestos.
- Don’t bring work clothes into the home that may contain asbestos particles.
- Always dispose of asbestos materials according to state and federal regulations
To learn more about health hazards from asbestos, visit the Minnesota Department of Health website at http://www.health.state.mn.us/divs/eh/asbestos/homeowner/heffects.html or check out the most recent newsletter from Let America Know at http://letamericaknow.com/view_newsletter_ysk.php?memberid=22515&orderid=872&newsletterid=346&issueid=1609&subscriberid=749173