Consumer Safety
Matthew Tully: Fireworks lobby ensures nightly barrage in Indiana neighborhoods despite noise, danger
In a state with some of the nation’s loosest laws, fireworks stands pop up this time of year like weeds in your garden — in strip malls, abandoned big-box stores and under tents by the side of the road. Millions of dollars are spent, an estimated $50 million annually in this state alone, on fireworks…
Read MoreDrillers silence fracking claims with sealed settlements
In cases from Wyoming to Arkansas, Pennsylvania to Texas, drillers have agreed to cash settlements or property buyouts with people who say hydraulic fracturing, also known as fracking, ruined their water, according to a review by Bloomberg News of hundreds of regulatory and legal filings. In most cases, homeowners must agree to keep quiet.
Read MoreAfter More Than a Decade and Thousands of Disfiguring Injuries, Power Tool Industry Still Resisting Safety Fix
“But as court records and testimony have shown, the companies rejected the safety advance for another reason, too: They worried that if a way to prevent severe injuries got traction in the market, they would face liability for accidents with conventional saws.”
Read MoreBooming Sales of Novelty Helmets Boost Toll of Motorcycle Deaths
“Even as more than 800,000 novelty helmets are sold in the U.S. every year, and as motorcycle crash deaths mount, federal regulators have never acted with urgency to crack down on the popular but flawed headgear. Proposals to limit sales of the novelty helmets have been delayed over and over again,” according to Fair Warning’s…
Read MoreIOSHA falling down on job?
“The Indiana agency charged with keeping workplaces safe performs far fewer inspections than in the past, issues fewer serious violations and in recent years has struggled with employee turnover. Created in the 1970s as a state-run offshoot of a similar federal agency, the current Indiana Occupational Safety and Health Administration is a dramatically changed –…
Read MoreBeef’s Raw Edges
“The Kansas City Star, in a yearlong investigation, found that the beef industry is increasingly relying on a mechanical process to tenderize meat, exposing Americans to higher risk of E. coli poisoning. The industry then resists labeling such products, leaving consumers in the dark. The result: Beef in America is plentiful and affordable, spun out in…
Read MoreFracking our food supply
An investigation by the FERN found that, “In Pennsylvania, the oil and gas industry is already on a tear—drilling thousands of feet into ancient seabeds, then repeatedly fracturing (or “fracking”) these wells with millions of gallons of highly pressurized, chemically laced water, which shatters the surrounding shale and releases fossil fuels. New York, meanwhile, is…
Read MoreAfter Dozens of Deaths, Inquiry Into Bed Rails
“Data compiled by the consumer agency from death certificates and hospital emergency room visits from 2003 through May 2012 shows that 150 mostly older adults died after they became trapped in bed rails. Over nearly the same time period, 36,000 mostly older adults — about 4,000 a year — were treated in emergency rooms with…
Read MorePotholes: Health indicators of the city streets
“The average amount of time it takes to resolve pothole complaints is on the rise on the streets of Pittsburgh, according to a PublicSource analysis of 25,000 pothole complaints from Pittsburgh’s 311 center between 2006 and 2012.”
Read MoreWoman plunges 8 floors in malfunctioning elevator
“Imagine getting on an elevator and dropping eight floors, crashing into the basement. It happened to one woman. What started as a routine elevator ride at her government job ended in what she calls a nightmare.Her accident sparked a FOX 5 I-team investigation and the discovery of repeated shut downs and entrapments.”
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