Other Stuff By Other Bloggers

First, there's some interesting stuff over at Workers Comp Insider, a blog you should all bookmark and visit now and then.

First, they review an article in the Washington Times reporting

on the high number of injuries experienced by federal air marshals, claiming that 2,100, or nearly half the total work force, had been sidelined due to injuries. Many are quitting the Federal Air Marshal Services (FAMS) due to a variety of illnesses, such as deep vein thrombosis and barotrauma, a decompression sickness that causes ruptured eardrums and sinus conditions. Over about a three-year period, nearly 2,500 workers comp claims were filed. Many workers are also reporting that they are being fired or demoted because of this. The issue is significant enough to come to the attention of Congress.

And then there's this piece about the hazards faced by night workers

Diane Pfadenhauer of Strategic HR Lawyer features a post discussing the perils of the graveyard shift. According to a cited article, night workers are 20 percent more likely to have a work-related injury than day workers, and are also prone to higher

And while you're surfing the internets, check out Cervantes over at Staying Alive who points out that while "homeland security" is the talk of the day, our emergency rooms (which would probably be important in the event of a terrorist attack) are falling apart:

In 1986, Congress passed legislation affirming that everyone had a right to critical care in hospital emergency departments, putting an end, in theory (only), to the wallet biopsy which used to determine whether you got your compound fracture pinned. Unfortunately, it didn't occur to anybody to provide money for this purpose, so many hospitals responded by simply closing their EDs.