When Professor David Michaels recently visited the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) as part of a delegation discussing the potential impacts of a proposed change to an occupational standard, he invited two Milken Institute School of Public Health Department of Environmental and Occupational Health (EOH) students to join him. Ans Irfan, an MPH student in the department’s Environmental Health Science and Policy program, and Brenda Trejo of the Global Environmental Health MPH program leapt at the opportunity.
Until January, Michaels headed up the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), and the OIRA visit’s purpose was to discuss an OSHA proposal on beryllium. “Beryllium is an extremely hazardous metal; it is carcinogenic and very low levels of exposure can lead to devastating lung disease,” Michaels explains. “When I was Assistant Secretary of Labor for OSHA, we issued a new, stronger standard protecting workers from exposure to beryllium.”
The Trump administration is currently considering weakening that new beryllium standard. The delegation of public health and labor advocates including Michaels and the students went to the White House OIRA to explain why weakening the rule would be detrimental to the health of people exposed to beryllium at their workplaces.
Both Irfan and Trejo recently graduated from the Milken Institute School of Public Health.