"The 'wellbeing of America and the American worker is my North Star,' President Donald Trump trumpeted at a recent White House event.

But the Trump administration’s policies are already adversely affecting workers’ health by undermining occupational illness prevention — including for cancers, musculoskeletal disorders and respiratory diseases that afflict hundreds of thousands of U.S. workers.

'It couldn’t get much worse in terms of the federal government’s role in preventing the number of occupational illnesses and diseases,' said Charlotte Brody, vice president of health initiatives at BlueGreen Alliance, an alliance of labor unions and environmental organizations.

Or, as Sidney Shapiro, a professor at Wake Forest’s law school, put it, 'We weren’t doing this terribly well under a reasonably friendly administration so all bets are it’s now going to fall completely apart.'"

Elizabeth Grossman reports for In These Times April 11, 2017. [2]