David Michaels, PhD, MPH

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Bio

Professor Michaels is an epidemiologist with extensive experience in research, regulatory and public policy, and program administration. From 2009 to January 2017, Dr. Michaels served as the United States Assistant Secretary of Labor for Occupational Safety and Health. Appointed by President Barack Obama and unanimously confirmed by the United States Senate, Dr. Michaels was the longest serving Assistant Secretary in the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s history.

As Assistant Secretary, Dr. Michaels worked to strengthen the agency's enforcement in high risk industries, improve OSHA's whistleblower protection program, promote common sense worker protection programs and standards, expand compliance assistance provided to small employers, and increase outreach to the vulnerable populations who are at greatest risk for work-related injury and illness. He also increased OSHA's focus and capabilities in the areas of data analysis and program evaluation.

Under his leadership, OSHA issued new health standards protecting workers exposed to silica and beryllium, and new safety regulations on fall protection, confined spaces, cranes and derricks, shipyards and electricity generation and distribution. Dr. Michaels updated OSHA’s injury and illness surveillance and tracking requirements, making workplace amputations and hospitalizations sentimental health events that now must be reported to OSHA.

Since leaving OSHA and returning to academia, much of Dr. Michaels work has been focused on the relationship of operational excellence and workplace safety and health. He has also assisted the safety and health authorities in several countries increase their effectiveness in preventing workplace injuries and illnesses.

In addition to his leadership of OSHA, Dr. Michaels served as the Department of Energy's Assistant Secretary for Environment, Safety and Health, serving from 1998 through January 2001. In this position, he had primary responsibility for protecting the health and safety of workers, the neighboring communities and the environment surrounding the nation's nuclear weapons facilities. Dr. Michaels was the chief architect of the historic initiative to compensate workers in the nuclear weapons complex who developed cancer or lung disease as a result of exposure to radiation, beryllium and other hazards. Since its enactment in 2000, The Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program has provided more than $16 billion in benefits to sick workers and their families. He also oversaw promulgation of two major public rules: Chronic Beryllium Disease Prevention and Nuclear Safety Management.

Dr. Michaels has conducted epidemiologic studies on typographers, commercial pressmen, construction workers, bus drivers and paper workers, and served as research director of the National Sheet Metal Worker Asbestos Disease Data Base, involving more than 10,000 asbestos-exposed workers in the U.S. and Canada.

In addition to his epidemiologic research, much of Dr. Michaels' work has focused on protecting the integrity of the science underpinning public health and environmental protections. He is the author of Doubt is Their Product: How Industry's Assault on Science Threatens Your Health (Oxford University Press, 2008), as well as the upcoming The Triumph of Doubt: Dark Money and the Science of Deception (Oxford University Press 2020), in addition to articles in Science, JAMA, Scientific American, the International Journal of Epidemiology, the American Journal of Public Health and numerous other journals. Dr. Michaels was guest editor of a special issue on Scientific Evidence and Public Policy in the American Journal of Public Health, and two issues of Law and Contemporary Problems: Sequestered Science: The Consequences of Undisclosed Knowledge and Conventions in Science and Law.

Dr. Michaels has also focused his research and policy work on the health of the disadvantaged. He founded and directed the Epidemiology Unit of the Montefiore-Rikers Island Health Service, the first such unit in a jail in the United States, conducting studies on tuberculosis, sexually-transmitted disease, drug abuse, mental health, homelessness and HIV. In the early 1990s, Dr. Michaels developed a widely-cited mathematical model estimating the number of children and adolescents orphaned by HIV/AIDS.

Dr. Michaels received the American Association for the Advancement of Science's Scientific Freedom and Responsibility Award for his work on behalf of nuclear weapons workers and for his advocacy for scientific integrity. He is also the recipient of the American Public Health Association's David P. Rall Award for Advocacy in Public Health, the John P. McGovern Science and Society Award given by Sigma Xi, the Scientific Research Society, and the American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists' William D. Wagner Award.

Dr. Michaels is a graduate of the City College of New York, and holds an MPH (Master of Public Health) and PhD from Columbia University.

Expertise

Expertise:

Environmental and Occupational Health

Environmental Health Policy

Epidemiology

Federal and State Legislation, Laws and Policies

Global Environmental Health

Occupational Health

Regulatory Science

Risk Assessment, Management and Communication

Social Determinants of Health

Toxic waste

Publications

Publications:

Michaels, D. Seven Ways to Improve Operations without Sacrificing Worker Safety. Harvard Business Review. March 21, 2018.

Gandhi TK, Kaplan GS, Leape L, et al. Transforming Concepts in Patient Safety: A Progress Report. BMJ Quality & Safety. Published Online First: July 17, 2018 DOI:10.1136/bmjqs-2017-007756.

Michaels D, Burke T. The Dishonest HONEST Act. Science 356:989 2017

Michaels D, Wagner GR. Work, Health, and Well-Being. In Environmental Health: From Global to Local. (3rd Edition). Frumkin H, ed. San Francisco. Jossey-Bass, 2016.

Michaels D, Howard J. Review of the OSHA-NIOSH Response to the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill: Protecting the Health and Safety of Cleanup Workers. PLOS Currents Disasters. 2012 Jul 18. doi: 10.1371/4fa83b7576b6e.
Michaels D. OSHA Does Not Kill Jobs: It Helps Prevent Jobs from Killing Workers. Amer J Ind Med 55:961-963, 2012.
Michaels D. Addressing Conflict in Strategic Literature Reviews: Disclosure is Not Enough. J Epidemiol Comm Health. 2009;63:599-600.

Michaels D, Monforton C. Beryllium’s Public Relations Problem. Protecting Workers When There Is No Safe Exposure Level. Public Health Reports 123:79-88, 2008.

Michaels D. Doubt is Their Product. How Industry’s War on Science Threatens Your Health. New York. Oxford University Press 2008.

Michaels D, Monforton C. How Litigation Shapes the Scientific Literature: Asbestos and Disease Among Automobile Mechanics. J Law & Policy 5(3):1137-1169, 2007.

Michaels D, Monforton C, Lurie P. Lung Cancer Mortality in the German Chromate Industry, 1958 to 1998. J Occup Environ Med. 48:995-7, 2006.

Michaels D, Monforton C. The Beryllium Occupational Exposure Limit: Historical Origin and Current Inadequacy. J Occup Environ Med. 48:998-1001, 2006.

Michaels D. Sarbanes-Oxley for Science. Law & Contemp Problems 69(3):1-19, 2006.

Michaels D. Manufactured Uncertainty: Protecting Public Health in the Age of Contested Science and Product Defense. Ann NY Acad Sci. 1076:149-62, 2006.

Michaels D. Mercenary Epidemiology – Data Reanalysis and Reinterpretation for Sponsors with Financial Interest in the Outcome. Ann Epidemiol 16:583-5, 2006.

Neutra RR, Cohen A, Fletcher T, Michaels D, Richter ED, Soskolne CL. Toward Guidelines for the Ethical Reanalysis and Reinterpretation of Another’s Research. Epidemiology. 17:335-8, 2006.

Michaels D, Monforton C. Lurie P. Selected Science: An Industry Campaign to Undermine an OSHA Hexavalent Chromium Standard. Environmental Health 5:5, 2006.

Michaels D. Doubt is their Product. Scientific American 292:74-80, June 2005.

Michaels D, Monforton C. Manufacturing Uncertainty. Contested Science and the Protection of the Public’s Health and Environment. Amer J Public Health 95.Suppl1:S39-48, 2005.

Michaels D, Monforton C. Scientific Evidence in the Regulatory System: Manufacturing Uncertainty and the Demise of the Formal Regulatory System. J Law Policy 13(1): 17-41, 2005.

Michaels D. Scientific Evidence and Public Policy. (editorial) Amer J Public Health 95:Suppl1.S5, 2005.

Wagner W, Michaels D. Equal Treatment for Regulatory Science. Extending the Controls Governing the Quality of Public Research to Private Research. Amer J Law Med 30:119-154, 2004.

Michaels D, Wagner W. Disclosure in Regulatory Science. Science 302:2073, 2003.

Michaels D. Environmental Health Science and the Legacy of Popular Literature. Environ Health Perspectives 111:14-5, 2003.

Michaels D, Bingham E, Boden L, et al. Advice without Dissent. Science 298:703, 2002.

Michaels D. Fraud in the Workers’ Compensation System. Origin and Magnitude. Occupational Medicine State of the Art Reviews 13:439-442, 1998.

Michaels D. When Science Isn't Enough. Wilhelm Hueper, Robert A.M. Case and the Limits of Scientific Evidence in Preventing Occupational Bladder Cancer. Int J Occup Environ Health 1:278-288, 1995.

Welch LS, Michaels D, Zoloth SR. The National Sheet Metal Worker Asbestos Disease Screening Program. Radiologic Findings. Amer J Ind Med 25:635-648. 1994.

Michaels D, Levine C. Estimates of the Number of Motherless Youth Orphaned by AIDS in the United States. JAMA 268:3456-3461, 1992.

Michaels D, Zoloth S, Bernstein N, Kass D, Schrier K. Workshops Are Not Enough. Making Right-To-Know Training Lead to Workplace Change. Amer J Ind Med 22:637-649, 1992.

Michaels D, Zoloth S, Alcabes A, Braslow C, Safyer S. Homelessness and Indicators of Mental Illness among Inmates in New York City's Correctional System. Hospital and Community Psychiatry 43:150-155, 1992.

Michaels D, Zoloth S, Stern FB. Does Low-Level Lead Exposure Increase Risk of Death? A Mortality Study of Newspaper Printers. Int J Epidem 20:978-983, 1991.

Michaels D, Zoloth S. Mortality among Urban Bus Drivers. Int J Epidem 20:399-404, 1991.

Shenson D, Dubler N, Michaels D. Jails and Prisons. The New Asylums? Amer J Pub Health 80:655-656, 1990.

Michaels D. Waiting for the Body Count. Corporate Decision Making and Bladder Cancer in the U.S. Dye Industry. Med Anthro Q 2:215 232, 1988.

Michaels D, Zoloth S. Asbestos Disease in Sheet Metal Workers. Proportional Mortality Update. Amer J Ind Med 13:731 734, 1988.

Michaels D, Zoloth S, Lacher M, Holstein E, Lilis R, Drucker E. Asbestos Disease in Sheet Metal Workers II. Radiologic Signs of Asbestosis among Active Workers. Amer J Ind Med 12:595 603, 1987.

Zoloth S, Michaels D, Lacher M, Nagin D, Drucker E. Asbestos Disease Screening by Non Specialists. The Results of an Evaluation. Amer J Pub Health 76:1392 1395, 1986.

Zoloth SR, Michaels DM, Villalbi JR, Lacher M. Patterns of Mortality among Commercial Pressmen. J Nat Cancer Inst 76:1047 1051, 1986.

Zoloth S, Michaels D. Asbestos Disease in Sheet Metal Workers. The Results of a Proportional Mortality Analysis. Amer J Ind Med 7:315 321, 1985.

Michaels D, Barrera C, Gacharna MG. Economic Development and Occupational Health in Latin America. New Directions for Public Health in Less Developed Countries. Amer J Pub Health 75:536 542, 1985.

Michaels D. Occupational Cancer in the Black Population. The Health Effects of Job Discrimination. J Nat Med Ass 75:1014 1018, 1983.