amp.hothardware.com/news/face… Haugen, a data scientist and former product manager at Facebook, has revealed herself as the source of a treasure trove of seemingly damning documents alleging that the social network “chooses profit over safety.” It does this by “optimizing for content that gets engagement, or reaction,” even when that content is knowingly harmful, based the social network’s own research, she says. The former product manager was hired in 2019 after being recruited by Facebook. She told 60 Minutes that she accepted the job only after being assured she could help Facebook quell misinformation, due to losing a friend to a rabbit hole of conspiracy theories. We all know those knows kinds of people, and they tend to post and share conspiracy theories on social media sites (Facebook included). This is a notion Apple CEO Tim Cook touched on earlier this year, suggesting that “rampant disinformation and conspiracy theories [are] juiced by algorithms.” Disturbed by what she saw, Haugen began secretly copying tens of thousands of documents, which she anonymously shared with The Wall Street Journal. She also filed eight complaints (and possibly more) with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) last month.
spacepolicyonline.com/news/blue…
That lofty goal ran into a buzzsaw today with the publication of an essay by 21 current and former company employees accusing top company officials of sexual harrassment and a lax safety culture. Alexandra Abrams, former head of Blue Origin employee communications, is the only one who put her name on the essay, but said it represented 20 others from various parts of the Blue Origin organization.
Many of the complaints are directed at the company’s personnel policies particularly regarding sexual harassment, but some criticize the safety culture: “Many of this essay’s authors say they would not fly on a Blue Origin vehicle.”
As the essay points out, by law the FAA is limited to regulating the safety of the public, not passengers, on commercial human spaceflights. It suggests Blue Origin is not prioritizing passenger safety.
www.foodsafetynews.com/2021/10/r…
There is a need for a framework to evaluate the effectiveness of food safety skills and education programs, according to a report published by Lloyd’s Register Foundation.
The report identified food safety training programs globally, whether they have an impact on reducing foodborne illnesses and deaths, and their use in different cultures and social settings. The study was funded by the foundation and authored by Alex Caveen, Michaela Archer and Mike Platt of RS Standards, a consultancy firm.
Current metrics tend to be developed for specific initiatives or locations. Recommendations to create a universal framework include identifying informal publications from food safety evaluation programs and drawing on existing knowledge to create guidance to monitor and evaluate food safety training. Before designing a training program, one of the first steps is to understand the specific risks through benchmarking, according to the report.
The high flammability of hydrogen – a colorless, odorless, and tasteless gas – has prompted EU lawmakers to ensure that potential safety issues do not stymie the market uptake of this rather novel energy carrier.
The European Commission sees clean hydrogen as “a vital missing piece of the puzzle” to decarbonise heavy industries like steelmaking and help the EU meet its 2050 climate neutrality objective.
One key issue though is safety: the gas is highly flammable meaning transport and use must follow strict protocols.
“For the successful development of an EU hydrogen economy, high safety standards must be established,” says Angelika Niebler, a German lawmaker from the European People’s Party (EPP), the centre-right political group in the European Parliament.
Technologies must first be safe if they are to be trusted, she told EURACTIV.
Niebler is one of the lawmakers behind an EU parliament report on the European Commission’s proposed hydrogen strategy tabled in July last year.
The European Parliament is “strongly convinced that public acceptance is key to the successful creation of a hydrogen economy,” the report states, calling for measures to promote a strong safety culture in the hydrogen value chain.
September 29, (THEWILL) – The Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) has reiterated its commitment to passenger safety and the need to ensure stakeholders in the air transport chain receive constant training. … Yabudu, represented by the airport manager, Murtala Mohammad International Airport (MMIA) Lagos, Mrs Victoria Shin-Aba, noted that safety is key and can only be guaranteed when everyone observes safety practices.
He explained that trained staff are guaranteed to prevent accidents at airports, adding that a well-trained staff equals safe passengers. …. Mrs Shin-Aba disclosed that ACI Africa chose September 2021 to celebrate Safety Week in all airports in Africa.
She said the objectives for this year’s ACI safety week were to adopt an inclusive approach by involving all internal and external stakeholders whose activities impacted safety directly or indirectly and promote the airport’s safety culture by sharing experiences and knowledge.
Introduction: An effective leadership is critical to the development of a safety culture within an organization. Patient safety in primary health care is an emerging field of research of increasing importance. Objective: This study has been conducted to explore the safety culture attitude toward patient safety to improve the quality and patient safety in primary health-care centers. Methods: A cross-sectional survey involving 288 medical staff in primary health-care centers in Al-Ahsa was conducted using an Arabic translated safety attitude questionnaire to assess the safety attitudes among health care center staff toward patient safety culture.
theculturechronicle.com/ways-to-i…
Construction is a dangerous profession. Workers expose themselves to many different materials, elements, and fumes daily. So it’s not wise to overlook safety precautions. Read these ways to improve the safety culture in a construction company to protect your workers from any potential harm. These tips go a long way to improve the safety and wellbeing of everyone involved.
www.foodsafetynews.com/2021/09/f…
Statistics never account for the trauma or years of suffering that follow foodborne illnesses. While here, at Food Safety News, we try to keep you informed of the numbers, the recalls, and the science, we also recognize that the most important aspect of food safety is protecting lives.
How do we grab people’s attention and make them invest in learning and understanding food safety? By showing them the personal stories of those who have been affected.
“You feel the impact when you talk to someone about these stories, you feel the hurt and pain,” 2019-2021 Dave Theno Fellow Jaime Ragos told Food Safety News. “I know for me, the biggest one is whenever I hear about a mother miscarrying a child from Listeria. It could have happened 20 years ago, and they still feel the pain of losing that child.”
It’s Modelling the Micro-Foundations of the Audit Society: Organizations and the Logic of the Audit Trail by Michael Power. This paper gets us thinking about why organizations do audits in the first place seeing as it has been proven to often decrease the efficiency of the actual process being audited. We discuss the negatives as well as the positives of audits - which both help explain why audits continue to be such a big part of safety management in organizations. Topics:
What kinds of audits are happening Why is the number of audits increasing? Why do we keep doing audits when they seemingly do not help productivity. Academia and publication metrics The audit society The foundations of an audit trail The process model of an audit trail The problem with audit trails. Going from push to pull when audits are initiated Why is it easier for some organizations to adopt auditing processes than others? Displacement from goals to methods Audits help different organizations line up their way of thinking Practical takeaways
Consistent safety activities have the potential to create a stronger safety culture. When lab management fully embraces these tools, the benefits can include decreased injuries, increased morale and productivity, and improved cost savings. How can safety activities contribute to a stronger safety culture? Consider this: Major League Baseball players practice similar drills as Little Leaguers. By turning the fundamentals into habits, professionals and amateurs alike can focus on more complex tasks. This lesson applies to all aspects of life, including a safe laboratory environment.
The following safety activities are options for companies to consider implementing. These activities should be completed consistently with intention and recorded for the sake of accountability.
www.newfoodmagazine.com/article/1…
The hemp industry can be a challenging field to work in given its relative infancy and accompanying patchwork of quickly evolving regulations. Although there are unique challenges in hemp, instilling and cultivating a strong food safety culture involves similar processes, education and resources used in countless other industries. In this article, Socati’s Quality Manager, Rachael Kropp, suggests how to encourage such a culture.
From day one, manufacturers need to prioritise traceability and quality, plus ensure that Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) are at the core of all operations. Socati bases its quality system on principles already in existence — looking towards food safety rules and regulations. Socati started with 21CFR110 (GMP for manufacturing, packaging or holding human food) and 21CFR117 (GMP for hazard analysis and risk-based preventive controls for human food), which are the backbone of its operations. Although neither GMP codes were built for hemp, these strict standards for human food should be the minimum requirement for hemp operations.
Liebherr-Australia executive general manager customer service – mining, Tony Johnstone, says it’s in the company’s DNA to ensure safety is a key part of its workforce’s day-to-day activities.
“At Liebherr, safety is not just one person’s responsibility, it’s everybody’s,” Johnstone tells Safe to Work.
“The key is engagement from the most senior of our leadership positions down.
“We see safety as being part of everybody’s role. Visibility and active participation by all of our leadership groups is imperative to our strategy for a safe work environment and desire for a safe work culture.”
www.straitstimes.com/singapore…
SINGAPORE - There has been an alarming rise in workplace accidents and deaths this year, said National Trades Union Congress assistant secretary-general Melvin Yong on Saturday (Sept 25).
He said in a Facebook post the recent blast at Tuas Incineration Plant was a grim reminder of this.
For at least the third time this year, the labour MP called on companies here to conduct safety time-outs and to reassess their work processes.
Thursday’s blast at the National Environment Agency (NEA)-owned plant left one worker dead and two seriously injured.
Mr Yong urged all companies to work with labour unions to train safe management officers to become dedicated workplace safety and health representatives.
This is so that a good safety culture can be instilled at the workplace, he said.
Meanwhile, workplace safety experts lamented that the blast occurred while an inquiry into another fatal explosion in a Tuas industrial building was ongoing.
For more than 60 years, hundreds of young artists have spent their summers at the Williamstown Theatre Festival in Massachusetts, hoping to start their careers on the right foot. Frequented by influential vacationers to the Berkshires, the months-long event is considered a rare opportunity for up-and-coming actors to share scenes with Tony Award winners, for emerging directors to learn from industry titans. Work the festival and securing gigs in the industry will be easier, thanks to the company’s standing, its vast network and its proved track record of transferring productions to New York City. Sure, the pay is low — or nonexistent — but the payoff is known to be well worth it.
Or is it? Recent complaints and subsequent interviews with 25 current and former festival staffers, department heads, apprentices and interns reveal not a professional springboard but a development program that exposes artists-in-training to repeated safety hazards and a toxic work culture under the guise of prestige.
In an eight-page letter and accompanying appendix, sent to the festival’s leadership and board in February and obtained by The Times, 75 alumni alleged a pattern of dangerous working conditions and demanded changes to its treatment of young arts workers. “It wasn’t just one summer. It wasn’t just one production. It wasn’t just one bad apple,” read the letter. “The system that sustains Williamstown Theatre Festival is deeply broken.”
www.suffolknewsherald.com/2021/09/2…
There seems to be a lot of traffic crashes lately, and whether that’s attributable to the pandemic, a growing population or something else is anyone’s guess. The most likely explanation is that it’s the result of a lot of different factors.
There have not, however, been a lot of accidents lately — at least not if you ask the Virginia State Police.
That’s because the state police recently began a push for journalists to replace the word “accident” with “crash” when reporting on a traffic incident.
The reason for that request? Only rarely are traffic crashes truly accidental in nature, Virginia State Police spokeswoman Sgt. Michelle Anaya states in a paragraph she has recently begun appending to nearly all of her news releases about crashes on Virginia highways.
Most crashes are the result of a driver’s choice to, say, drive drunk or distracted, speed, run a stop sign or red light, make a sudden lane change too close to other vehicles, try to make it across the lanes before the cars that are coming, or some other unsafe move.
Changing the way we talk about and write about these incidents is important, Anaya implies in her statement. It’s “just one small, but significant, part” of a comprehensive approach by the governor’s Executive Leadership Team on Highway Safety. Changing the state’s “highway safety culture” could result in reduced fatalities and injuries on Virginia’s roads.
UGI Utilities, Inc. celebrated the official opening of its new Learning Center during a ribbon cutting ceremony today in Bern Township.
“The new state-of-the-art Learning Center represents a significant milestone in UGI’s commitment to enhancing our safety culture,” Hans Bell, UGI President, said. “In addition, this facility will provide the best possible preparation for our current and future workforce and constitutes an important investment for UGI Utilities as we move forward.”
The facility is located on a 40-acre tract on Stinson Road, bordering Route 222.
The $37 million complex is anchored by a 47,500 square foot Learning Center Building. The Learning Center Building includes six classrooms and two lecture rooms that can open into a single large space that can seat approximately 135 people in a classroom-style setting.
Four labs within the building will accommodate specific UGI departments, including Construction and Maintenance, Safety, Service, and Meter and Regulation training programs.
“Nothing we do is worth endangering ourselves and the motoring public,” he said. Avoid phrases like hard-runner and use terms like a good, safe driver.
It should be reiterated to drivers that they have the final say in safety, he added.
Falldin said safety and compliance can be established using culture, teamwork, training, and technology. He said a disproportionate number of accidents occur within a driver’s first six months with a carrier, no matter if they are experienced or not.
It is advantageous to bring them into your safety culture as soon as possible, else they will continue with their previous company’s culture.
Safety and operations departments’ actions must match their words, and everyone must be on the same page, Falldin said.
Unsafe working practices and poor safety culture were at issue in the death of port stevedore who was crushed by a hatch cover during cargo discharge operations on board a ship at a Antwerp bulk terminal last year.
The port stevedore was on board the Gibraltar registered general cargo ship MV Cimbris when he was fatally crushed when a hatch cover was moved by the ship’s gantry crane at the Antwerp Bulk Terminal in Belgium on July 14, 2020.
The UK Marine Accident Investigation Branch conducted the investigation on behalf of the Gibraltar Government in accordance with the Memorandum of Understanding between the MAIB and the Red Ensign Group Category 1 registries of Isle of Man, Cayman Islands, Bermuda and Gibraltar.
No-one saw the stevedore place himself in a hazardous position between the crane and the hatch cover, and the ship’s chief officer did not have a clear line of sight, the MAIB said. A second crew member was not used to act as a lookout or banksman.
The NSW Government and NSW Farmers have launched a workplace safety program providing education and advice to the agriculture industry to help reduce farm-related death, injury and disease.
Minister for Better Regulation and Innovation Kevin Anderson said the NSW Government has invested $2 million over four years for the Farm Safety Advisory Program to support farming businesses in developing an effective work health and safety culture and keeping workers safe.
“This $2 million investment from the NSW Government is part of our mission to create a safer and stronger regional NSW. All NSW small to medium farming operations with fewer than 50 workers are eligible to participate in this free program,” Mr Anderson said.
“The agriculture sector is the backbone of our regional economies and is a significant employer in regional communities. It is imperative as a government we do everything we can to support farm workers and keep them safe.
“The program will improve farm safety practices by providing education directly to farming businesses. This allows the NSW Government to continue to work alongside the agriculture industry on a wide range of farm-related safety issues.”
www.bworldonline.com/patient-s…
In a joint statement with partner organizations, the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers & Associations (IFPMA) linked universal health coverage to the importance of instilling a patient safety culture in the design and delivery of the whole healthcare spectrum.
This covers health promotion to prevention, treatment, rehabilitation, and palliative care, with the goal of providing safe, people-centered, accessible, acceptable, affordable, and quality healthcare.
In implementing GPSAP 2021–30, patients, their families, and carers must be engaged in co-creating safe care and primary healthcare strengthened in partnership with family doctors.
After a series of catastrophic and high-profile incidents, the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) was tasked with playing a larger role in overseeing safety for public transportation. It now works with transit agencies to develop data-driven safety plans, among other activities.
FTA requires transit agencies to develop new safety plans that incorporate Safety Management Systems (SMS) to manage and mitigate safety risk. FTA also incorporated SMS in its transit agency oversight to better identify and assess safety risks, and determine appropriate mitigation efforts, including mandatory safety standards.
To assess how FTA is implementing its responsibilities, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) spoke with twelve selected transit agencies and found that most faced challenges incorporating FTA requirements to develop and document its SMS in their new agency safety plans. Some rail transit agencies noted difficulties transitioning from the former 21-element safety plan to SMS and its four required components. However, most transit agencies said they benefited from FTA’s assistance. FTA’s assistance included guidance documents, webinars, and training. Upon request, FTA also reviewed transit agencies’ draft safety plans, providing lessons learned from those reviews.
FTA established a Safety Risk Management (SRM) process to identify, assess, and mitigate safety risks across the nation’s transit agencies. During the initial implementation, FTA selected four safety concerns to review. According to FTA, the use of cameras on rail transit was a pilot project, and FTA has completed four of the five steps in its process for the camera safety pilot. Though FTA continues to evaluate that pilot and work on the other three safety concerns, GAO’s review found it has not completed actions to prepare for future rounds of the SRM process. In particular, GAO was concerned that FTA has not identified and documented lessons learned from the pilot.
Developing and maintaining a “safety culture” at a transit agency has also been a challenge, according to eight of the twelve transit agencies GAO spoke with. Officials from more than half of the agencies said they had to make organizational changes to better implement a safety culture, such as setting up employee hotlines, conducting employee surveys, or greater communication to staff from upper management.
FTA is continuing to gather information while considering whether to mandate certain transit safety standards. FTA has issued safety bulletins for rail cameras and end-of-railcar signage, which suggest but do not require certain actions related to the installation of cameras and signage in rail transit cars. GAO adds that FTA has not yet initiated a rulemaking for any mandatory federal safety standards. The watchdog said that the transit agencies it spoke with were generally open to mandatory safety standards for some safety issues. For example, many of the selected transit agencies expressed support for requiring medical examinations of employees, as well as other so-called human-factor safety risks.
EAU CLAIRE, Wis. (WEAU) - It’s fall harvest time, which means it’s time to double the focus on safety and health on farms. National Farm Safety and Health Week is designed to bring that extra focus. Tractor safety and rural road safety is the topic on Monday, overall farmer health on Tuesday, safety and health for youth in agriculture on Wednesday, agricultural fertilizer and chemical safety on Thursday, and safety and health for women in agriculture on Friday.
Drought conditions around Wisconsin are largely unchanged compared with last week. A new national drought monitor map shows drought in some areas of northwestern and southern Wisconsin, though the moderate drought conditions are easing in some of that area. Counties showing severe drought include Walworth, Kenosha and Racine in the southeast, and Douglas, Bayfield, Ashland and Iron in the north.
Wisconsin Ag Connection is reporting that the Pittsville FFA and FFA Alumni again are sponsoring their Splash of Red Cranberry Tours, starting this week. The tours, which cost $25 per person, will be given on Sept. 24 and 29, and on Oct. 1, 6, 8, 13, 15, 20, and 22. The tours are part of Pittsville High School’s cranberry science class, are on cranberry farms east of Pittsville. The two-hour tours start at 9:30 a.m. A lunch including cranberry treats made by the school’s foods classes also are part of the event. Information and registration for the tours is available by calling Pittsville High School. This is the 18th year the tours are being offered.
This year’s World Patient Safety Day was yesterday commemorated in Accra with a call on health service providers to offer quality service to patients.
The Chief Director of the Ministry of Health, Mr Kwabena Boadu Oku-Afari, who launched the event, said medical negligence posed a threat to healthcare delivery since any such negative attitude could lead to prosecutions and payment of fines.
“It is increasingly becoming clear that patients are taking more interest in defining and ensuring adherence to standards of care that they wish to receive from service providers.
“We, therefore, have to continually re-examine our quality and safety culture to respond to the complex needs of today’s patients,” he said.
The event, which was on the theme: “No quality, no coverage: Safe maternal and newborn care now,” was attended by stakeholders within the health sector who deliberated on promoting patients’ safety in the country.
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (WAND) – For the last 77 years the third week of September has been recognized as National Farm Safety and Health Week.
As another harvest season begins, the Illinois Departments of Agriculture and Labor remind all farm workers to stay safe, especially during the upcoming and busy harvest season.
Governor Pritzker proclaimed the week of September 19-25, 2021, National Farm Safety and Health Week in Illinois, with the theme “Farm Safety Yields Real Results.”
The latest data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics shows the agriculture sector is still the most dangerous in America. Each year the farming profession sees 573 fatalities, which equals 23 deaths per 100,000 workers.
“It is important to bring awareness not only to the physical dangers of farming, but the emotional toll it takes as well,” said Jerry Costello II, Director, IDOA. “While we will highlight roadway safety, chemical safety and other traditional farming hazards, it is also important to encourage farmers to take care of their own health.”
The specific paper found some interesting results from these simulated situations - including that it was found that the debriefing, post-simulation, had a large impact on the amount of learning the participants felt they made. The doctors chat about whether the research was done properly and whether the findings could have been tested against alternative scenarios to better prove the theorized results.
Topics:
Individual and team skills needed to maintain safety.
Safety-I vs Safety-II
Introduction to the research paper
Maritime Safety and human error
Single-loop vs Double-loop learning
Simulator programs help people learn and reflect
Research methods
Results discussion
Recognizing errors and anomalies
Shared knowledge to define limits of action
Operating the system with confidence
Importance of learning by doing and reflecting back afterward
Complexity and uncertainty as a factor in safety strategy.
Practical Takeaways
Work simulation is an effective learning process
Half of the learning comes from the debrief
Read this paper if doing simulation training