Environmental Health Class Blog

I think the most troubling aspect of climate change is the rising water levels due to the ice caps melting as a result of increasing temperatures. This is would have a huge ecological effect since the environment of many living beings living near a coast or at really low altitudes could be affected including humans. In cities like San Francisco, where a big portion of the land mass lies lower than 6 feet above sea level, even the slightest rise in sea levels becomes a threat. Visualizing such a scenario would be helpful for someone who's never heard about climate change to understand it. Clearly explaining the dangers that climate change poses will guarantee the person's concern about this very real danger.

After watching the zero waste life video, I looked around me and found that indeed most of the things that I own are in some way or another either made of or packaged in plastic. It was incredible to see the amount of trash that Lauren Singer produced over 3 years. As I’m writing this, I’m drinking coffee out of a disposable paper cup, eating a salad out of a disposable plastic container, using a plastic fork and napkins, all of which will inevitably end in the trash. In about 10 minutes I have produced as much waste as Lauren has produced in 3 years! It seems like Lauren made life-changing decision and it definitely impacted her life significantly. Making this life change would take a lot of effort on my part and I am definitely motivated to start making small changes and gradually move towards a less wasteful lifestyle.

I chose to research Asbestosis (white lung). The first case to be described in medical literature was in 1924 in England, when a textile worker died because of asbestos exposure. In the United States, Section 112 of the Clean Air Act of 1970 was the first to include asbestos as an air pollutant. The Toxic Substances Control Act has since forbidden many applications of the chemical. In 1988, the United States Environmental Protection Agency implemented regulations that required that companies report the asbestos used in their products. To this day, the Environmental Protection Agency has no general ban on the use of asbestos despite the overwhelming evidence of the harmful effects it has on human health. According to the Environmental Working Group Action Fund, over 10,000 people die each year from asbestos-caused diseases including asbestosis. 

I chose to read the Workplace Violence Prevention in Health Care program from the Cal/OSHA website. This standard went into effect in April 2017, and it requires certain health facilities to report and record a violent incident log, to implement a workplace violence prevention plan, to review this place with personnel, and to train staff appropriate to handle these situations. The summary of the program can be found here . This relates to my workplace because the program includes needle distribution sites as one of the health care facilities where this standard has gone into effect.

A chemical I looked up that we handle often in the workplace is Naloxone. This is a drug used to stop opioid overdoses. This is what I found: LD50 LC50 Mixture:LD50 (ORAL RAT) IS 1200 MG/KG(FREE BASE) Routes of Entry: Inhalation:NO Skin:NO Ingestion:NO Reports of Carcinogenicity: NTP:NO IARC:NO OSHA:NO Health Hazards Acute and Chronic: SINCE PRODUCT IS FORMULATED FOR HUMAN THERAPEUTIC USE AND CONTAINS < 1% ACTIVE INGREDIENT BY VOLUME, NORMAL HANDLING IS NOT EXPECTED TO CONSTITUTE A HAZARD. Explanation of Carcinogenicity: THIS COMPOUND CONTAINS NO INGREDIENTS AT CONCENTRATIONS OF 0.1% OR GREATER THAT ARE CARCINOGENS OR SUSPECT CARCINOGENS. Effects of Overexposure:CLINICAL EXPERIENCE WITH PRODUCT HAS FOUND THAT IN THE ABSENCE OF NARCOTICS, PRODUCT EXHIBITS ESSENTIALLY NO PHARMACOLOGIC ACTIVITY. Medical Conditions Aggravated by Exposure: NONE SPECIFIED BY MANUFACTURER. Overall this sounds like good news! There are no carcinogens at concentrations highe...

I currently volunteer at the San Francisco AIDS Foundation for the Syringe Access Services program. We do needle exchange sites at various sites throughout the city. Other than handing out sterile syringes and supplies, part of the job is to go on sweeps and pick up used syringes that users may leave on the floor. For this specific task, we use tongs to pick up the stray syringes and deposit them into a plastic container, a.k.a. a bio bucket. According to the hierarchy of controls, this is being addressed with administrative controls and personal protective equipment, the lowest levels in the hierarchy. This is because there is no way to remove the hazard, since the whole job is to remove the hazard from the public. Therefore the best way to deal with this is to train people on how to properly handle dirty needles, and giving them the necessary equipment to avoid exposure.