ARTICLES | David Michaels

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America's Workplaces Are Still Too Dangerous

The New York Times
by David Michaels

April 28, 2021

[OSHA, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration] which I directed from 2009 to 2017, has improved working conditions for generations of Americans. But in recent years, progress has slowed. Thanks to OSHA’s efforts, countless workers have been spared injuries, illnesses, disability and premature death. But too many are still being hurt on the job. The Covid-19 pandemic has taught us the value of the often invisible workers who make our economy function. OSHA should modernize to ensure that all workers are able to do their jobs and at the end of their shifts go home safe and healthy.

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Harvard Business Review

by David Michaels

March 21, 2018

Companies can be successful and safe at the same time. The reality is that virtually all workplace injuries are preventable, and safety management and operational excellence are intimately linked. Injuries and catastrophic events, in addition to being tragic, are evidence that production is not being managed correctly. Improved operational performance will result in fewer injuries.

Reimagining Our System for Public Health Protection

American Journal of Public Health

by David Michaels

June 5, 2019

The system through which US government agencies protect the public’s health, safety, and environment is being severely challenged. It faces concerted efforts to weaken the laws and regulations that require corporations to limit air and water pollution, clean up land or drinking water they have contaminated, market safe products to consumers, and eliminate workplace hazards. At the same time, there is an exodus of dedicated and experienced civil servants who are frustrated with these new developments. Much effort will be needed to rebuild this system of vital protections.

A National Strategy for COVID-19: Testing, Surveillance, and Mitigation Strategies

JAMA
by David Michaels, Ezekiel J. Emanuel, and Rick A. Bright

January 6, 2022

At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, the response of the US federal government was seriously flawed. Early guidance on testing was mistargeted, getting tested was a logistical nightmare, and too few tests were performed. Once an acceptable, yet suboptimal, testing infrastructure was established, it was marginalized, thought to be superfluous because of the vaccines. Even now, testing results are not reliably linked with sociodemographic data, vaccination status, or clinical outcomes; the availability of reliable rapid tests remains limited; and prices are too high.

Halting Workplace COVID-19 Transmission: An Urgent Proposal to Protect American Workers

The Century Foundation

by David Michaels and Gregory R. Wagner

November 26, 2019

COVID-19’s is a massive worker safety crisis. Hundreds of thousands of workers have been sickened and thousands of them have died. This report examines the conditions under which COVID-19 has spread through workplace transmission and assesses the failures of OSHA and the federal government to protect workers from exposure. It then presents an eleven-point plan—to be directed by the federal government, working in close coordination with state and local public health authorities—for stopping workplace transmission of COVID-19.

Seven Ways to Improve Operations without Sacrificing Worker Safety

Environmental Justice Is Essential in the Workplace and at Home

The Nation

by David Michaels and Robert Bullard

October 22, 2021

It is now widely recognized that communities of color in the United States are far more likely than their white counterparts to be exposed to pollution and toxic wastes in their neighborhoods. However, there is another crucial aspect of environmental and racial justice that has not gained the same recognition: environment justice in the workplace. Injustices in the work environment, including toxic chemicals, unguarded machines, working unprotected at heights or in extreme heat, and now Covid-19, are as dangerous as those outside the factory fence. Black and brown workers are more likely to be exposed to workplace hazards than white workers and as a result are at greater risk of injury, illness, and death.

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We Have the Technology to Stop Superspreading Without Masks

NYTimes

by David Michaels

April 21, 2022

At every stage of the pandemic, a disproportionate number of coronavirus infections have been traced to a relatively small number of gatherings, also known as superspreader events. The recent Gridiron dinner, after which over 70 people tested positive, including members of the Biden administration, is just the latest example. Some public health experts argue that tolerating these events is what living with Covid looks like. As far as we know, no one who tested positive after the Gridiron dinner became severely ill, but we don’t know if these cases also spread to workers and beyond. There’s little reason to accept this as a new normal.

OSHA Can Do More to Protect Americans from Covid-19

NYTimes

by David Michaels and Jordan Barab

January 14, 2022

The Supreme Court’s decision on Thursday to block the Occupational Safety and Health Administration from requiring large employers to make sure that their workers are either vaccinated against the coronavirus or masked at work and tested weekly was a setback for America’s efforts to stop the pandemic. The six Republican-appointed justices are helping to prolong the pandemic, endanger workers and extend the labor shortage that has disrupted the economy.

But the justices may also have opened the door for a more comprehensive rule that will better protect the nation’s workers, and it is one that OSHA should have issued months ago.

Halting Workplace COVID-19 Transmission: An Urgent Proposal to Protect American Workers

The Century Foundation

by David Michaels and Gregory R. Wagner

November 26, 2019

Mercenary Science: A Field Guide to Recognizing Scientific Disinformation

American Educator

by David Michaels

Winter 2021

Science underpins all public health and environmental regulations. The basic principle of the regulatory system holds that decisions must be made on the basis of the best evidence available at the time. Mercenary science obscures that best evidence. In doing so, it doesn’t just game our system; it prevents our government from accomplishing one of the reasons for its very existence: to enable some individuals (especially the owners of corporations) to profit by producing something or performing a task that does not impinge on the freedom and well-being of other individuals. We want stronger regulation not because we don’t care about freedom, but because we cannot be free without the state’s protection from harm. We need to know that our air is safe to breathe, that our food is safe to eat, and that we can return home from work at the end of our shifts no less healthy than when we walked out the door in the morning. That is both the imperative and, alas, the challenge.

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Vaping Crisis Didn't Have to Happen

FDR only allowed 1,000 refugees to escape Hitler’s Germany. My ‘family’ was among them.

Los Angeles Times

by David Michaels

August 16, 2019

At the height of World War II, as Adolf Hitler was presiding over the mass murder of Europe’s Jews, President Franklin D. Roosevelt kept our borders closed. Informed of the ongoing slaughter, he decided to permit only a thousand refugees entrance to America and allowed them to remain here only until the war ended. I grew up with two families: a traditional one, and the one we called our “Oswego family,” these refugees and their partners and children. . . .

Climate change isn’t just cooking the planet. It’s cooking our workforce.

Washington Post

by David Michaels

July 19, 2018

We are smashing heat records again this summer. We hear this so much now that there’s a risk we will start ignoring it before the key message sinks in: Global warming is here, and it’s starting to cook us. Not just the planet — us. Heat is the leading weather-related killer in the United States, and the toll (estimates range up to 1,300 deaths per year) will rise steeply in the coming decades.

CNN

by David Michaels

September 11, 2019

Public health detectives are desperately trying to find the cause of the hundreds of lung disease cases and at least six deaths that appear to be related to vaping. We don't yet know the cause or causes of the current outbreak; however, in response to a study that found lung-damaging chemicals in some Juul e-cigarette liquids, a spokesman for that company didn't dispute the finding but claimed it was irrelevant. . . .