"OSHA devotes most of its budget and attention to responding to here-and-now dangers rather than preventing the silent, slow killers that, in the end, take far more lives. Over the past four decades, the agency has written new standards with exposure limits for 16 of the most deadly workplace hazards, including lead, asbestos and arsenic. But for the tens of thousands of other dangerous substances American workers handle each day, employers are largely left to decide what exposure level is safe."
"TAYLORSVILLE, N.C. -- Sheri Farley walks with a limp. The only job she could hold would be one where she does not have to stand or sit longer than 20 minutes, otherwise pain screams down her spine and up her legs.
'Damaged goods,' Ms. Farley describes herself, recalling how she recently overheard a child whispering to her mother about whether the 'crippled lady' was a meth addict.
For about five years, Ms. Farley, 45, stood alongside about a dozen other workers, spray gun in hand, gluing together foam cushions for chairs and couches sold under brand names like Broyhill, Ralph Lauren and Thomasville. Fumes from the glue formed a yellowish fog inside the plant, and Ms. Farley's doctors say that breathing them in eventually ate away at her nerve endings, resulting in what she and her co-workers call 'dead foot.'"
Ian Urbina reports for the New York Times March 30, 2013.
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