Safety At Work Blog

As one gets older, the “where are they now?” columns in the newspapers or the summer magazine supplements become more interesting.  The articles of faded pop stars and political one-time wonders are diverting but every so often one makes you stop and think.

OHS is not renowned for “where are they nows?”.  The discipline and the profession has few celebrities but there are important people.  One such person is Jim Ward.  Jim’s story is long and involved but he came to the public’s attention as a survivor of the 1998 gas explosion at the Esso gas plant in Longford Victoria.  The blast, which killed 2 workers, crippled the State’s gas supply for almost 2 weeks.  A Royal Commission was held into the disaster.

Usually a worker’s evidence may be reported on for a day or two in such an investigation but Jim Ward became more than that primarily due to the attempt, according to some, by Esso Australia (a subsidiary of ExxonMobil) to scapegoat Jim.  This attempt was roundly condemned in the Royal Commission.

In the Australasian Mine Safety Journal, Jim Ward has written a short personal account of what happened that day but, more importantly, how that day has changed his life.

After the failure of steel exchanger and before the fatal explosion, Ward writes:

“I raced to a doorway and looked out into the gas plant where I saw a thick white fog rolling down the walkway. This white fog was a cloud of vaporised hydrocarbon. Gas – highly flammable gas.

Out of the fog stumbled two zombie-like creatures. Two men – blackened from head to toe. They were covered in soot which had been blown from the inside of the huge steel exchanger when it violently ruptured. They had their arms out in front of them trying to feel their way through the fog, blinking as if trying to catch some daylight to help guide them to safety.

Over the roar of the jet–engine–like sound of gas spewing into the atmosphere I yelled – I yelled at them to get into the control room. Into the control room and to relative safety. Ninety seconds later the gas found a source of ignition and a second, much louder explosion shook the control room building again.

What followed from that moment on was sheer unadulterated terror.”

In his article he goes on to explain the psychological impact of that day and the diagnosis of his post-traumatic stress syndrome.  Ward rightly points out that mental health is poorly understood in the workplace.

Many employers are satisfied if they get through a single day without a problem or complaint but silence is not compliance and there may be mental health issues that require attending to even though they are difficult to identify.

Ward’s article is a timely reminder that the measurement of a successful OHS management system or a more personal “safe system of work” has changed and that business needs to scrutinise OHS auditors on the mental health assessment criteria.

Perhaps, most particularly to Australia, it is necessary to gauge OHS laws through contemporary hazards, such as mental health.  The law will exist for decades and need to be able to adapt to emerging hazards, many of them not coming from the physical.

His article also means that workers need to consider colleagues as more than just colleagues and look to their humanity.  In the past many of us are inclusive and dismissive when we refer to someone as a work mate.  People are more than that.

It may be, as this article is written on 9 November 2009, that Jim Ward’s message has already been learnt by the survivors and emergency workers of the World Trade Center from 2001.  But for many outside the United States it is also two days before Armistice Day, the end of the World War which really brought  shell-shock or combat stress reaction and post traumatic stress disorder to the public mind.

When remembering the fallen in war and work we should also ask “where are they now?”

Kevin Jones

Recent a colleague was explaining to me how the cost of a project is ballooning and the project is generating a toxic workplaces by some managers not talking to other managers.  The disharmony is doing nothing to control the costs and the juvenile conduct of the managers is spreading the damage throughout the organisation.

My colleague told me that if only the existing, long-standing purchasing and project policies had been followed this situation would not have occurred.  One person did not do their job properly and made a decision that was not substantiated by the policy.  The decision was not checked, for whatever reason, and the project is in serious jeopardy.

Many readers may recognise a similar scenario but often these become very muddy due to office politics, office allegiances etc.  But it is often easier to understand big issues by looking at small cases.  Douglas Law firm posts small court decision reports every so often that summarise OHS matters well.  One of the latest concerns

“In Inspector Phillip Estreich v Hannas Civil Engineering a contractor suffered electric shock when cutting through a conduit pipe which was supposedly empty.

There was a documented safety system where before performing excavation work, a number was to be called which provided information on underground pipes and cabling.  On the day in question the number was not called and the supervisor merely visually inspected the area.  The risk of harm was reasonably foreseeable as electric cables were usually found in orange conduit pipes.  The contractor was left unsupervised to cut the pipes, and had no experience in the area.”

This case is a useful thumbnail that illustrates the consequence of small decisions.

Perhaps, OHS professionals should look to ancient wisdom for current enlightenment.  An old rhyme that I learnt as a child regularly pops into my head when I read about OHS problems.

“For want of a nail the shoe was lost.

For want of a shoe the horse was lost.

For want of a horse the rider was lost.

For want of a rider the battle was lost.

For want of a battle the kingdom was lost.

And all for the want of a nail.”

Kevin Jones

On 9 November 2009 public submissions close on Australia’s model OHS Act but the move for harmonisation and, hopefully, a simplification for business and government continues in other areas.

The Australian Transport Council (ATC) met on 6 November 2009 and agreed on many Council of Australian Governments (COAG) matters concerning unnecessary bureaucratic duplication:

“ATC agreed to recommend to COAG that South Australia would be the host jurisdiction for the national rail safety regulator.

ATC also agreed to recommend to COAG that a host jurisdiction for the national heavy vehicle regulator be agreed, noting that New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland have expressed interest.

It was agreed that the Australian Maritime Safety Authority will be the national regulator for maritime safety, responsible for regulating commercial vessels. This is a significant step towards national uniformity.”

There were several other initiatives mentioned – level crossing safety, a National Road Safety Council, minimum standard for taxi drivers.

But the recommendations above decentralise some of the bureaucracy.  At the HR Leaders Awards recently, the CEO of Carnival cruise liners, Anne Cherry, said that many public servants exist in a unique policy environment of the capital city, Canberra, and the policies reflect this.

SafetyAtWorkBlog would like to suggest a change that could occur within the enforcement parameters of the OHS model law review.

Let’s consider a national mine safety regulator with offices located in each of the mineral resources regions of Australia.  Could transport regulators have offices within, or just outside, major port facilities?  Major hazards regulators in major hazards zones?

There is much information bandied around about flexible working arrangements and the use of new technology to unite isolated workplaces.  How radical would it be to split the centralised OHS regulators’ offices into hazard-based offices in rural, regional and suburban locations?  The inspectors would be adjacent to the hazard locations for enforcement and the advisers are on hand for assistance to industry.  The locations could even be seasonal to deal with seasonal industries and labour forces.

OHS enforcement policies would remain the same, only the place of implementation and coordination would change.

Most OHS regulators already have a a couple of regional offices but mostly these remain in the outer suburbs of the capital cities.  Some entire departments have relocated to satellite towns for cost reasons but also to provide employment opportunities outside the major population centres.

Could OHS be regulated and enforced across a country the size of Australia and through the major industrial and resource structures, without the concentrations of policy-makers and inspectors in city offices?

Kevin Jones

It is easy to forget that workers compensation is clicking along during this intense period of analysis of OHS laws.  Workers compensation legislation passed through Tasmania’s House of Assembly this week (it still needs to get through the Legislative Council).  The Minister for Workplace relations, Lisa Singh, highlighted the following components of the changes in a media release on 6 November 2009.

“The key reforms will:

• Improve access to common law damages for compensation by reducing the whole of person impairment threshold from 30% to 20%;
• Amend the first step-down to 90% of normal weekly earnings rather than 85% of normal weekly earnings;
• Delay the operation of the first step-down, so that it comes into effect at 26 weeks of incapacity rather than 13 weeks;
• Streamline the management of injury and illness to deliver better health and return to work outcomes for injured workers and lower costs to employers;
• Foster and reinforce a return to work culture among employers, workers and other stakeholders;
• Provide greater income security for injured workers by increasing the duration and reducing the “step-down” of weekly compensation payments for injured workers;
• Increase lump sum compensation up to $250,000 for permanent impairment or death to levels more comparable to those provided in other states and territories;
• Provide additional financial incentives for workers and employers to participate in rehabilitation.”

The reforms are based on the Government’s response to the recommendations of Victorian consultant Alan Clayton and the Return to Work and Injury Management Model developed by the WorkCover Tasmania Board.

Alan has been a prominent advisor on workers compensation to governments around Australia for some time.  His Tasmanian review and recommendations were in 2007 and are available online.  The Government’s response is also available.

The Minister has said

“With the range of views that were put forward during consultation I am confident that this legislation strikes the right balance of fairness for workers and their families and support for employers and business.”

Simon Cocker, of Unions Tasmania, said in response to the Bill:

“The Workplace Relations Minister is to be congratulated for pursuing these improvements which will ensure that injured workers are better supported when they return to work and are paid more appropriate rates of compensation while off work.”

“The step-down provisions that currently operate have been shown to be unfair and place injured workers and their families under financial stress at a time when they are often struggling to cope with the impact of a serious injury.”

“Delaying the step down and softening its financial impact is an improvement.”

The Australian Government paid considerable attention to the Victorian OHS Act  because it was the most recent review of that legislation.  If the government continues this trend, the Tasmanian changes may be very significant for the rest of the country.

Kevin Jones

The global financial crisis has highlighted many business management issues.  Probably one of the most contentious is executive remuneration which is based on the question “should executives receive performance bonuses when the company is not performing well, ie. not returning profits to shareholders?”  But underpinning even this question is one of accountability.

Business leaders, commentators, lawyers and politicians are comfortable in discussing financial and corporate accountability but extend that discussion to other areas of business and they respond with a confused stare or outright dismissal of the proposal.

This week, the Australian Financial Review newspaper ran a page one story: “Revealed: directors face harsher liability penalties.”  [None of the AFR articles are freely accessible online] The article revolved around Australian Government plans to “break an impasse between state governments over proposals to harmonise conflicting commonwealth and state directors’ liability laws.”

As should not be surprising from a business paper, the discussion centred on financial and corporate governance issues but OHS obligations were floating behind all of the business-speak.  This was particularly obvious with this paragraph:

“Federal ministers have expressed concerns that onerous directors’ liability rules increase the cost of directors’ insurance and discourage them from taking board seats.”

This paragraph shows that the first response to any corporate trouble is insurance.  This cowardly response is short-sighted and contributes to the unnecessary growth in litigation which the directors regularly complain and which increases the cost of liability insurance premiums.

It is also an acknowledgement that the introduction of new rules does not address the behaviour intended, it leads to investigating ways of avoiding accountability for one’s actions.

The second point of that paragraph is that people are more likely to refuse to participate than to undertake sufficient education that would allow them to perform the job better and with less risk.  The response should not be “it’s too risky so I won’t do it” but “let’s get better informed so that my decisions are more valid and the risk is reduced”.

It is clear that lawyers are running the agenda when semantics enter the argument.  The AFR article goes one to say “there are fears about confusion over the distinction between executive and non-executive directors”.  This confusion comes from the main concern of directors being to cover one’s arse rather than focusing on the job at hand and the corporate purpose.

The AFR article makes no mention of OHS but the accompanying article “Duty weighs heavily” by reporters James Eyers and Annabel Hepworth does.  Eyers and Hepworth look back through several decades of law reform investigations and reviews to show the history of similar director concerns.

But it is a more recent statistic that is the nub of the article.  A Treasurysurvey of directors from top Australian listed companies, in conjunction with the Australian Institute of Company Directors, found that

“…71 per cent of those surveyed had declined taking board seats mainly because of their fears of personal liability, while 46 per cent had resigned from a board position because of the issue.”

These concerns largely deal with false market rumours, manipulating securities prices, criminal cartels, consumer protection laws and others.  It is this company that the importance of taking responsibility for OHS should be pushed by the safety advocates but it seems that the business and corporate contexts of OHS are only ever discussed by the corporate lawyers.  And yet, OHS professionals complain about not getting heard at Board level.  Perhaps what is needed is one of these OHS professionals to take a business degree so that OHS can be described in terms business understand.

Of course the risk is that OHS may be found to be contrary to all the basic capitalist concepts and that the only way it can be applied in a business is for the application of legal “wriggle room” from the concept of reasonably practicable.

On 6 November 2009, Bob Baxt (a partners with law firm Freehills and the chair of the law committee with AICD) responded to the Eyers and Hepworth article with a personal opinion describing directors and senior managers already in the “firing line” from the corporate regulators.  He seems to see this as unfair but those executives are in the “firing line” because they are suspected of doing the wrong thing.

Baxt describes the “reverse onus of proof” as an “obnoxious device” and he may be right but he needs to consider why such a provision was introduced in the first place – business managers were not complying with their legislative obligations, they were avoiding responsibility, taking short cuts for personal wealth, having workers die and then winding up the company to avoid prosecution.

Too many business professionals focus on “cause and effect” and see injustice.  Yet if they looked a little further back and analysed the “causes” a bit more carefully they may just see that in many cases the regulatory changes have come about as a result of their own misdeeds.

The analysis of capitalism that resulted from the global financial crisis has faded very quickly as the markets rebound.  Companies are applying the same behaviours that led to that crisis.  Most business analysts and executives talk about leadership as the be-all and end-all but we should not be lead in the same direction as in the past as we are likely to end up in the same place.  True leadership is about accepting mistakes and heading in a fresh direction where such mistakes cannot be repeated.

Those who are bleating about how corporate executives are being bludgeoned by regulation and accountability need to get out of the leafy middle-class suburbs and the office buildings with bayside views and take some time to reflect on how we came to be in such an economic mess and why workers continue to get injured, maimed and killed.  It may just be that accepting responsibility is the new foundation required to build a humaneand profitable future.

Kevin Jones

The financial newspapers often refere to a BRIC group of countries or, rather, economies.  This stands for Brazil, Russia, India and China and is used to describe the forecasted economic powerhouses for this century.  But there is also the risk of economic growth without morality.  India is a case in point and asbestos can be an example.

The health hazards of asbestos have been established for decades but only officially acknowledged more recently.  One would expect that when some countries ban the import, export and manufacture of a product that other countries may suspect that something may be amiss.

In the introduction to the September 2008 book “India’s Asbestos Time Bomb” Laurie Kazan-Allen writes

“Historically the burden of industrial pollution has reached the developing world much faster than the fruits of industrial growth” writes Dr. Sanjay Chaturvedi.  This statement is well illustrated by the evolution of the asbestos industry in India.  In the frantic rush for economic development, there has been a pervasive lack of concern for the health of workers and the contamination of the environment.  Sacrificing the lives of the few for the “good” of the many, the Indian Government has knowingly colluded in this sad state of affairs.”

Kazan-Allen is a longtime campaigner on asbestos.  In 2001 she put this question to the Canadian Medical  Association Journal.

“Chrysotile has caused and is continuing to cause disease and death worldwide. It is hypocritical for Canada to continue to produce chrysotile when it is not prepared to use it domestically. If chrysotile is unsuitable for Canadian lungs, how does it become suitable for Korean, Indian and Japanese lungs?”

A foundation of public health and workplace safety management is that bad practices, immoral practices, are corrected, not accommodated.  At some point the exploitation of others for the financial betterment of a few must end. Could that lead to a “compassionate capitalism” or is that just another term for “socialism”?  These semantics are being argued at the moment in the United States over health care but the question needs to be asked globally, just as it is on climate change and on the financial markets.

The global implications of poor OHS management and practices needs to be placed on the policy agenda not only of the ILO, United Nations and trade union movement, but the business groups, and professional associations who need to develop their social charters.  If those voices are not added to the debate, safety will also be a fringe issue and it is too important for that.

Kevin Jones

Finally, the Safety Institute of Australia has got its act together and has contracted someone who has produced an OHS magazine that, mostly, satisfies the needs of its members and the aims of the Institute.

The first edition of OHS Professional landed in the SafetyAtWorkBlog letter box this morning and, it is fair to say that the involvement of an international publishing company, LexisNexis, is all over this magazine.  The format clearly owes itself to other publications in the LexisNexis Australia stable,  such as Lawyers Weekly, HR Leader and Risk Manager.

By and large, the magazine seems better for not having an OHS professional as the editor.  Mark Phillips places the magazine in the publishing context rather than in the past where such magazines were squeezed into the OHS context or, even worse, made to fit into some agenda of a professional association.  OHS Professional is devoid of the institutional baggage and infighting that has occurred in the past in the Institute.  However, this is the first edition and the Letters page is yet to be operational.

There are some tweaks that could improve the magazine or address some bugbears. There is a book review on the latest Andrew Hopkins book.  The name of the reviewer is not specified and described only as “an SIA member”.  Clearly identifying the author is important to establishing the independence of any review.

This is particularly relevant in this case as the retail outlet of the Hopkins book is listed as Futuremedia.  The founder of Futuremedia is Kerry Wonka. The Futuremedia website lists a professional membership with the SIA and Kerry Wonka is identified as a committee member of the SIA New South Wales Division.  The absence of a reviewer’s name allows for speculation that the review could be an advertorial.  The simple inclusion of a name would establish additional credibility to the very good review of an important book.

Several articles would seem to be familiar to readers as similar content has appeared in other Australian safety publications such as Safety Solutions, a free trade publication that is widely circulated, and various online OHS websites.  If any magazine is to survive in the modern knowledge industry it must differentiate itself from not only other magazines but other information sources.  OHS Professional has the basic structure right and it would be great to see its content develop into an independent source of important OHS information that does not rely on the cycle of SIA conferences and events.

As a for instance,National Safety magazine (pictured right) has established itself as an independent source of authoritative OHS information under the editorship of Helen Borger.  National Safety reduced its reliance on being a magazine for members of the National Safety Council of Australia and this has helped broaden its readership and to survive where many other OHS magazines, such as CCH’s OHS Magazine (pictured below)  and Niche Publishing’s Complete Safety, folded.

As with other SIA publications, the enthusiasm that comes from a new source of OHS information continues to be let down by an unfriendly website.  There seems to have been no coordination between the SIA’s website developer and the hard copy publishers.  Anyone visiting the SIA website would be unaware that it publishes much at all.  More prominence is given to its partner organisations than to the important and tangible benefits of becoming a member, such as high quality publications.

When one finally finds the link in the drop down list for SIA magazines, the only article relates to the SIA’s relationship to its previous publisher who cancelled the contract at very short notice!!

The relationship with LexisNexis Australia is crucial to building a contemporary relevance for the Safety Institute of Australia, an aim that the SIA has regularly stated publicly but the Institute is hampering these good efforts with poor online support and inadequate promotional coordination.

In this first week of November 2009, SafetyAtWorkBlog has received two SIA publications that have great potential.  The sad part is that this has occurred in the week after Safe Work Australia Week, the most active OHS week in Australia.  This seems a major missed opportunity for the Safety Institute and it is suggested that their promotional coordinator, whoever it may be, should be sat down and had a long talking to.

Having said this, the next edition of OHS Professional will be keenly anticipated.  If it is as good as the first edition, it will be a shame it is not published more frequently.

Kevin Jones

Disclaimer: an article by Kevin Jones is in this edition of OHS Professional.  Kevin also works part-time as a content provider for LexisNexis but has no involvement with the publications.  Kevin has written for National Safety magazine a couple of times over the last ten years and he is a Fellow of the Safety Institute.

The Australian State of Victoria has been in a fortuitous position with a Coroner, Graeme Johnstone, who was a staunch advocate of safety in the public and workplace spheres.  Johnstone was a strong and physical presence at many conferences and in the media.  Indeed, it would be difficult to find a more obvious and influential safety advocate in Australia over the last twenty years.

Johnstone retired recently due to ill-health.  From 4 November 2009, his successor, Jennifer Coate, will be sitting in an official Coroners Court and the supportive legislation should provide even greater support to safety advocates.

Ruby Haouchar, Hon.Rob Hulls MP, Judge Jennifer Coates (State Coroner), James Heywood, Christine Nixon, Murray Hall (IT @ VIFM)

According to a media release issued in support of the Court, there are several important legislative changes.

• The power of the court to make recommendations to any Minister, public statutory body or entity relating to public health and safety and the administration of justice. Previously recommendations could only be made to Ministers.
• Importantly, any Minister, public statutory body or entity either receiving or  [sic] the [sic]of a recommendation must now respond in writing within three months stating what action will be taken (if any) as a result of the recommendations. This has never been required before and is an Australian first.
• All inquest findings, coronial recommendations and responses to recommendations will be published on the internet, unless otherwise ordered by a coroner. This is the first time in Victorian coronial history that a requirement to publish inquest findings has been enshrined in legislation.
• A new power for coroners to compel witnesses to testify without the risk of self incrimination. The court will now be able to issue a certificate excusing evidence heard by the court from being used to incriminate witnesses in other court proceedings.”

On the first point, how much different would have been the approach to level crossing safety with this authority?  Would the faulty design of some level crossings have been changed more quickly?  Of course, recommendations are still only recommendations but by referring to statutory authorities and others, there is likely to be less direct political spin and, perhaps, greater accountability.

This leads to the second point, timelines.  Any meeting, action item, control measure or even correspondence, should have a timeline for response.  This will allow the families of victims a hook on which they can hang their dissatisfaction with government inaction.  Of course, there is usually no guarantee that correspondence is publicly accessible but to bullet point three.

Not only will inquest findings now be easily accessible to the public, the government responses mentioned above will be made available on the Coroner’s website.

Around ten years ago I was writing a book on occupational health and safety in the sex industry in Australia.  I requested details form the Coroner’s office of deaths in this industry.  I received many pages of decisions which helped considerably in determining whether deaths occurred at work or in relation to work.

Several years later, I put in a similar request for information on dairy-related deaths in support of a WorkSafe Victoria guidance with which I was assisting.  The level of detail provided then was a line or two on each incident.  It was enough to prepare a rough data table but was woefully unhelpful in the preparation of case studies of work-related fatalities.  The accessibility allowed under the new laws will allow for a greater, and more public, understanding of the contributing factors to death which should lead to greater options for elimination or control.

The Coroner is clearly enthusiastic about her new powers.  In the media release Coates says

“This new legislation will better enable the court to thoroughly examine and investigate the different types of deaths reported to us so we can help prevent similar deaths from occurring.  Of real significance is the requirement that any body or entity receiving a recommendation must respond to us. This will be a real mechanism for change to public safety and we expect enormous benefits for the Victorian community to follow,” she said.

Judge Coate said publishing inquest findings, recommendations and responses on the internet would make public statutory authorities and entities more aware of their responsibility to respond to coronial findings.

“The new response requirement means the recommendations of a coroner cannot be selectively pursued or ignored. This is an important gain for the public safety and administration of justice for our community”

She said the publication of inquest findings, recommendations and responses on the internet would also make the coronial process more accessible to families who experience the death of a loved one investigated by the court.

“We have gone to great lengths to ensure our new practices under the Act recognise and have regard for the families and friends of a loved one who has died.  That includes acknowledging the distress of families and their need for support and a recognition that different cultures have different beliefs and practices surrounding death.”

SafetyAtWorkBlog wishes Coroner Coates all the best and will be keenly watching the progress.

Kevin Jones

Safe Work Australia introduced a program of safety ambassadors in the lead-up to Safe Work Australia Week 2009.  The editor of SafetyAtWorkBlog was chosen as one of this year’s ambassadors.  Kevin Jones was also featured in the authority’s newsletter, the Safe Work Australian, that is available for download.

There were no formal requirements of the title other than promoting Safe Work Australia Week.  From the list of ambassadors on the Safe Work Australia website, most already have a strong record of advocating safe work practices.  Being an ambassador seems to have simply provided a topical focus, or additional motivation, for promoting the week.

In October 2009 a workshop was held on worker safety by the  Worker Education and Training Program (WETP), a part of the US National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.  Many of the topics raised in the workshop – REACH, Globally Harmonized System (GHS) of Classification and Labeling of Chemicals, and nanotechnology would be issues or hazards familiar to most SafetyAtWorkBlog readers.

This report on the workshop, released in November 2009, is highlighted here because it is a very good example of a basic report on a workshop that makes the reader regret that they couldn’t be there.  This respond encourages readers to make the extra effort for the next set of workshops – a major benefit of such reports and, sometimes, the main reason.

The mention 0f nanotechnology is a good link to two new reports on the issue released by Safe Work Australia on 4 November 2009.

Engineered nanomaterials: Evidence on the effectiveness of workplace controls “explores the effectiveness of workplace controls to prevent exposure to engineered nanomaterials.”  According to a media release on the reports this report found:

• “current control and risk management methods can protect workers from exposure to engineered nanomaterials
• enclosure of processes involving nanomaterials and correctly designed and installed extraction ventilation can both significantly reduce worker exposure to nanomaterials, and
• a precautionary approach is recommended for handling nanomaterials in the workplace.”

The lack of available health effects data has directly led to the precautionary position in recommendations but it is good to see that the hierarchy of controls (old technology) is being applied to new technology. The report gets to a point of recommending a combination of

“…controls [that] should provide a robust regime through which nanomaterials exposure to workers will be reduced to very low levels.”

The bibliography in this report is also excellent and includes a comparative table of the research reports and papers analysed.

Engineered nanomaterials: A review of toxicology and health hazards was a literature review that  reports:

“there is no conclusive evidence to suggest that engineered nanomaterials have a unique toxicity. However, sufficient toxicity tests have not yet been conducted for most engineered nanomaterials

nanoparticles tend to be more bio-reactive, and hence potentially more toxic, than larger particles of the same material, and

carbon nanotubes are potentially hazardous to health if inhaled in sufficient quantity.”

Nanotechnology is a difficult area of OHS study as there is so much research material coming through that it is (probably more than) a full-time job just to stay current.  The literature review into toxicology makes a point that it is important to remember in this field.

“A wide variety of in vitro and in vivo experimental protocols have been used to assess biological responses to NPs, some of these yield more useful data for occupational risk assessment than others.  Some are potentially misleading.” [emphasis added]

The second of these reports was a good introduction to the general issues of health risks but must be stressed that these reports deal with engineered nanoparticle(s) (ENPs) which are defined as

“A nanoparticle with at least one dimensions between approximately 1 nm and 100 nm and manufactured to have specific properties or composition. “

Increasing research into any issue almost always leads to a fragmentation of the discipline into subsets.  That research into engineered nanoparticles is different from regular nanoparticles needs to be remembered.  As the report itself says

“…the major thrust of the research is in relation to identifying potential hazards for assessment of occupational safety since working with ENPs is likely to be where most exposure occurs. In contrast to ambient particulate air pollution, where health effects have been observed and research has been aimed at discovering the causative agents and mechanisms, the reverse is true for ENPs.”

Tom Phillips AM, chair of the Safe Work Australia Council said , in a media statement,

“Safe Work Australia has requested that the National Industrial Chemicals Notification and Assessment Scheme undertake a formal assessment of carbon nanotubes for hazard classification to clarify regulation of these nanomaterials.

“We have also requested that CSIRO develop guidance for the safe handling and disposal of carbon nanotubes, which will be a useful resource for OHS managers.”

It is good to see Safe Work Australia (now an independent statutory body) take one of the ACTU recommendations from its 2009 factsheet.

Kevin Jones