And one thing not to like at all.
Ian Urbina’s magisterial probe in The New York Times of OSHA’s failure to police long-term health risks — like harmful fumes caused by glue used in furniture plants — is without doubt a great example of agenda-setting public-interest reporting of a kind that, sad to say, is becoming increasingly scarce among mainstream business news outlets.
The 5,400 word piece — yet another example of the indispensability of longform newspaper writing that itself is becoming an endangered species — explores how and why the furniture industry increasingly uses a chemical known as nPB despite warnings about its consequences for workers from no less an authority than the chemical companies that used to manufacturer it.
The story is smart to point out that OSHA devotes most of its resources to headline-grabbing accidents when toxic workplace air incapacitates 200,000 workers a year and, as the story explains, more than 40,000 Americans a year die prematurely from exposure to toxic substances at work — 10 times as many as those who die from refinery explosions, mine collapses, and other accidents….
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