[NIOSH] has an enormous mandate and a long list of accomplishments over the past fifty years, making it one of the most efficient agencies in the federal government.
Without NIOSH’s ability to investigate outbreaks and certify respirators, more healthcare workers, firefighters, construction workers and others will get sick and die. Sooner or later this country will face another pandemic and, as with COVID, workers will be on the front lines without the benefit of research to protect them. More workers will die of heat-related illness, and more miners will succumb to dust-related illness and other deadly hazards.
As University of California at San Francisco professor Dr. Robert Harrison points out, “there will be no independent reliable source of information about line speed and crippling back and hand injuries in meatpacking and poultry plants, nor about the thousands of chemicals that cause cancer and reproductive damage, and the stress of work on heart diseases, diabetes, obesity and mental health.”
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