IH News & Views: Delaware Section - AIHA
Attend Your Next Delaware Local Section meeting!!!
Volume 6, Issue 2
September 2003/October 2003
Officers
President
1
Richard Wolf, CIH, CSP
AIG Consultants, Inc
(215) 255-6331
President-Elect
Barbara Dawson, CIH, CSP
DuPont Chemical Solutions Enterprise
302-992-3120
Secretary
Bruce G. Fine, CIH, CSP, CHMM
Astra-Zeneca
Treasurer
Naresh Batta, MS , RPIH
Batta Environmental
(302) 737-3376
Communications Director/Newsletter Editor
Aaron Chen, MPH, CIH
DuPont Chemical Solutions Enterprise
(302) 695-4332
Outreach Committee Chair
Gee Joseph
DuPont Facilities Services
(302) 695-7246
Past President
Karen L. Landis, CIH
W.L. Gore and Associates
(410) 506-3712
What is an IH? Doesn’t EVERYBODY today know the
answer?
One of our missions this year has been outreach, to “get
the word out” about IH or EH&S by reaching out to
others, particularly those young and those who are still
trying to figure out what to do in their adulthood. I
ardently support and favor this endeavor. Our
involvement in science or health fairs, through
presentations or meetings, in classrooms, by being visible
and vocal, is how we can accomplish this.
What I’m getting at is EDUCATION. I am a major
advocate of this. I like to teach in my job and I take every
opportunity I can to educate others. People can best
prevent injury or illness if they know hazards and how to
protect themselves; not by having me or somebody else
watch over them. Informed and educated persons can be,
yes, dangerous, but not as dangerous as those uninformed,
uneducated, or ignorant. Your best allies can be those in
the know, not those in the dark. How can you support
someone if you don’t know their cause or position?
Without information, direction, teaching or leadership,
one can be lost. To get people into our profession and to
get people to work with us, they need to know what an IH
is, what we do, our capabilities, and most importantly,
that we exist.
Inside This Issue
1
The Prez Says……
2
NEXT DINNER MEETING – September 17 , 2003
SPECIALGuest Speaker Del. State Representative Hall-Long
3
Health Bites, Organic Defined - Dick Wolf, CIH, CSP
4
Editorial: Should Delaware have an office of OH&S? – Aaron
Chen, MPH, CIH
5
Comments from ABIH – Barbara Dawson, CIH, CSP ABIH
Board
The Prez says…..
This gets me back to “getting the word out”. For our
profession to grow, people need to know what we’re
about; who and what we are. People need to know what
we can do for them; how we can help. People need to
know that we can save them money, that we are not just
an expense. IH’s are here to help and hopefully here to
stay. Yes, we’re aging. Yes, our numbers are declining.
Yes, we’ve had an identity crisis. Yes, this can be
changed. Let’s all work on “getting the word out”.
Dick
Delaware AIHA Newsletter 1
2. Next Dinner Meeting –
Wyndham Hotel, Downtown
Wilmington, Sept. 17, 2003
The next dinner meeting will be at the Wyndham
Hotel in downtown Wilmington. The guest
speaker
will
be
Delaware
State
Representative Bethany Hall-Long. She will
update us on the efforts to create an office of
occupational health and safety in Delaware.
Date : September 17, 2003, Time: 5:30 pm
Location: Wyndham Hotel, 700 King St.,
Wilmington, De.
Cost: $21 Delaware Local section or other
local AIHA members
$26 Non-members
Dinner will include a chicken entree, dessert and
choice of hot/cold tea and decaff coffee.
Please RSVP to [email protected] no
later than Sept. 12, 2003. You may pay by
sending your dues and dinner fees using the
attached form. (see end of newsletter)
Membership
The 2003 annual membership fee is now past
due. If you know of past members not paid up
yet, please ask them to remit their membership
fee of $20 by check to the Treasurer c/o Victoria
VanDyck at your earliest convenience. Dues may
also be paid at the dinner meeting.
3.
Health Bites – Organic Defined
or……….
By Dick Wolf, CIH, CSP
What Does Organic Really Mean?
Organic chemistry is the study of carbon
compounds. Carbon can be found in all organic
compounds and substances and strangely or not, in
some inorganic compounds. Some carbon
compounds are also classed as inorganic. For
example, carbon disulfide and carbon monoxide
are classed as an inorganic compounds. There are
over 1,000,000 carbon compounds.
Carbon compounds can be highly toxic, carbon
tetrabromide, of low toxicity, chloroethane (TLV
of 1000 ppm), irritating, an organic acid, and
even asphyxiants, simple (CO2) or chemical
(CO). Carbon compounds can be liquids
(ketones), gaseous (CO), or in particulate form
(carbon black). Some carbon compounds are
flammable, some not.
Not all substances classed as organic contain
carbon. Some inorganic substances contain
carbon. Some carbon compounds are also
inorganic. Would an organic chemist study
inorganic compounds containing carbon?
“Organic” vegetables are vegetables grown with
fertilizers (additives) only of animal and
vegetable matter, no chemicals. Organic food is
free from chemical injections or additives. Do
organic vegetables contain carbon? Would an
organic chemist study organic vegetables? Per
my computer thesaurus, synonyms for organic
include natural, whole, unrefined, untreated,
crude and macrobiotic. Adding fertilizers to
vegetables involves treatments in my book. So
for future study:
1. Are organic vegetables natural and untreated?
2. Do organic vegetables pose a health threat as
many organic compounds do? What would
happen if I ate a large quantity of organic
vegetables in one sitting?
3. If a dried organic vegetable is finely ground,
can I have airborne respirable organic
particulate matter?
4. If liquefied, will an organic vegetable (OV)
generate organic vapors (OV)? Any
relationship?
5. Lastly, Do I wear a chemical cartridge
organic vapor (CCOV) respirator with
particulate filter for respiratory protection if
I’m involved in organic vegetable processing?
I’m confused? Are you? Food for thought.
Delaware AIHA Newsletter 2
4. Editorial: Should Delaware Have an
Office of Occupational Health and Safety
By Aaron Chen, MPH, CIH
For many years Delaware has been a state without
an Office of Occupational Health and Safety. The
state has relied on the good capabilities of the
local Federal OSHA and EPA offices to contribute
to any issues related to occupational health. It has
been thought that the Federal offices of OSHA and
EPA could work within the state to maintain levels
of health and safety within the workplace that
enhanced worker health and safety. Has this been
effectively maintained? This writer believes that
the answer to this question is complex and
requires a complex answer. Unfortunately I do
not have the time or space to discuss all of the
issues and history that should be discussed. I will
just attempt to give some perspective about what I
feel is needed in a small state like Delaware.
Some states like California are known (sometimes
infamously) for their state OH&S offices. They
have a huge structural system for addressing
workplace OH&S. Other states have created
OH&S boards to work within the workers
compensation system to assist in protecting
workers. I feel that Delaware needs something
that approaches the workplace from both angles.
We have (in New Castle County) a number of past
and present sites that pose potential threats to
workers both acutely and chronically. To best
deal with these issues I think Delaware needs to
team with the insurance providers, Federal OSHA
and create its own oversight agency to assure that
sites do meet minimum standards for worker
OH&S. This does NOT mean creating a
monstrously huge office/department but creating a
unit that will assist with oversight and technical
assistance to the workplaces and employers.
There should be a cooperative effort to work with
OSHA and EPA to assure a robust oversight of the
workplace without creating another burdensome
agency that is not quick to respond. Speed and
good assistance without undue fear of regulatory
nightmare are what employers and employees
need. What the state taxpayers need is a system
that will work cooperatively with Federal agencies
to assure worker OH&S while staying within the
bounds of the state’s smaller budgetary structure.
5. UPDATE From the ABIH Board for Fall 2003
By Barbara Dawson, CIH, CSP
As the newest ABIH director in the Delaware
Section, I'm taking over the role of giving updates to
our section. I began my six year term on the Board
in March and I'm still in the process of learning about
the work of ABIH. Hopefully, everyone knows that
the ABIH exists to improve the practice and the
educational standards of the profession of industrial
hygiene and is the entity that oversees the
certification of industrial hygienists.
The ABIH will hold its regular semi-annual meeting
during the PCIH in California in ABIH currently has 4
standing committees. The Executive Committee is
composed of a Chair, Vice-Chair, Secretary and
Treasurer. Frieda Fisher-Tyler, of the Delaware
Department of Public Health, is currently serving as
Vice-Chair. The other three committees are 1)
Qualifications, 2) Examination and 3) Certification
Maintenance (CM). Norm Henry is chair of the the
CM Committee. I will also be serving on the CM
Committee and Norm has been assigned to be my
board mentor.
We also met on August 23-24 in Chicago to learn
more about the Carver Policy Governance® model.
This session was an outcome of a recommendation
from a Board Governance Task Force which has
been exploring various models to determine whether
a change in the way the ABIH governs itself would
enable the Directors to become more effective in
determining what the Board needs to deliver, to
whom and at what cost. The Carver model
addresses board job design and the boardmanagement partnership.
I'll have more to report to all of you after our
September meeting. In the meantime, if you want to
know more about ABIH, check out their website >www.abih.org.
Delaware AIHA Newsletter 3