OSHA vows to issue new TB rule in spring 2000 despite proposed study
OSHA vows to issue new TB rule in spring 2000 despite proposed study
Opponents look to Congress to block standard
Study or no study, expect a new TB standard by spring, says Amanda Edens, MPH, industrial hygienist at the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and chief architect of OSHA’s proposed TB regulations.
A proposed study by the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) can’t be used to block the new TB regs, according to language inserted into the appropriations bill at the last minute. And that’s all that matters to her, adds Edens. "There hasn’t been anything that says, Stop all work on the TB standard,’ or someone would have told me by now," she says.
Opponents of the OSHA TB regulations say they’re now looking for someone in Congress willing to sponsor a bill that would do exactly that. "We’re exploring the idea of a bill like Blunt’s," says Jennifer Thomas, lobbyist for the Association for Professionals in Infection Control (APIC). Rep. Roy Blunt is the congressman from Missouri who sponsored a bill, which passed in the House only to stall out on a filibuster in the Senate, to halt work on the ergonomics standard OSHA recently proposed in the Federal Register.
Edens says anyone who’s compliant with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s TB guidelines has nothing to worry about. "If people are following the CDC guidelines like they say they are — that is, if they’re skin-testing employees, if they have an isolation room under negative pressure, if they have good early identification systems — then the new regulations won’t be a burden," she explains.
Since the agency reopened the record for comment last fall, Edens says, the federal agency is set to back down on some points it had originally proposed:
• In most cases, employers will have to skin test annually, not every six months.
• In populations where the practice might cause false-positive reactions, employers won’t be told to do two-step skin testing.
• Homeless shelters largely will be let off the hook because "their mission is to bring people in off the streets, not screen them and keep them out."
• Emergency departments and waiting rooms probably won’t be asked to make structural changes, such as those that would place them under negative air pressure, because such changes won’t be feasible in many such situations.
• Finally, laboratories that handle routine work, such as acid-fast smears and sputum cultures, will not be required to make expensive structural changes such as installing double doors.
Despite the phrase forbidding it from being used to halt work on the TB regs, the NAS study will still come in handy, says Thomas. "We plan to use this study to bolster our next move."
"We certainly wouldn’t turn a deaf ear to the NAS study, and certainly we could revise the standard in light of the study," says Bill Wright, OSHA spokesman. "But the [appropriations bill] language clearly states this study won’t delay the pending regulations. There’s nothing that says cease and desist, so we’re going forward."
Proponents of the TB regs decry efforts to stall the regs any longer. "APIC is just a pawn for management," says Bill Borwegen, organizer for the 650,000-member Seattle-based Service Employees International Union. "Meanwhile we’re still getting members who contract TB on the job." Borwegen doesn’t let the NAS off the hook, either. "They should be fed up by now with being used as a political football," he says.
At the Washington, DC, office of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, assistant director Jim August also blasts the American Thoracic Society for having managed to get OSHA to reopen its record for comments on the issue of risk assessment.
"Everyone who’s had anything to say about OSHA’s risk assessment has had plenty of time to say it," says August. "The whole thing has gone on way too long."
August adds that he doesn’t see as likely the prospects for passing a stand-alone bill to stop work on the TB standard. "TB isn’t like ergonom ics — I’m not sure there’s enough interest out there."
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