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We are presenting here a translation of the introduction to a Cuban government Manual of Safety and Hygiene for Work that was prepared for Cuban workers in 1965. The manual was written by Lic. Hugo Murua Chevesich and Dr. Antonio Granda Ibarra. The introduction includes a brief statement from Commandante Erneso Che Guevara, then Cuban Minister of Industry. Noteworthy is that Che explains that occupational health and safety was not a priority in the revolution's first years under the pressure to increase production. In fact, he says that this pressure caused a certain contempt for personal safety. He declares that this approach must change and states emphatically that protection of workers is essential and that the measures explained in the manual must be implemented immediately.

This essay describes the ramifying influence of Jens Rasmussen, illustrating how his work lives on through people whom he has influenced, even though they may have never directly collaborated. I approach this in three ways: a social network analysis of the 'Rasmussen number' (an analogue of the Erdös number); and two citations network analyses based on different search domains and different network structures., (Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

The process of anaerobic digestion (AD) is valued as a carbon-neutral energy source, while simultaneously treating organic waste, making it safer for disposal or use as a fertilizer on agricultural land. The AD process in many European nations, such as Germany, has grown from use of small, localized digesters to the operation of large-scale treatment facilities, which contribute significantly to national renewable energy quotas. However, these large AD plants are costly to run and demand intensive farming of energy crops for feedstock. Current policy in Germany has transitioned to support funding for smaller digesters, while also limiting the use of energy crops. AD within Ireland, as a new technology, is affected by ambiguous governmental policies concerning waste and energy. A clear governmental strategy supporting on-site AD processing of agricultural waste will significantly reduce Ireland's carbon footprint, improve the safety and bioavailability of agricultural waste, and provide an indigenous renewable energy source. © 2016 Society of Chemical Industry., (© 2016 Society of Chemical Industry.)

: Background: In its 1999 report To Err Is Human: Building a Safer Health System, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) suggested that between 44,000 and 98,000 Americans die annually as a result of medical errors. The report urged health care institutions to break the silence surrounding such errors and to implement changes that would promote a culture of safety., Objective: Our aim in conducting this content analysis of AJN articles was to explore the nurse's historical and contemporary role in promoting patient safety. We chose to focus on AJN because, as the oldest continuously published nursing journal, it provided a unique opportunity for us to view trends in nursing practice over more than 100 years., Methods: We reviewed all AJN tables of contents from 1900 through 2015, identifying for inclusion articles with titles that suggested a focus on nursing care, patient safety, or clinical content. We then read and analyzed each of the final 1,086 articles over a period of nine months., Findings: Our content analysis indicates that the early articles (from 1900 through 1920) focused on such safety measures as asepsis and the newly understood germ theory. In the 1930s, articles proposed methods for preventing medication errors and encouraged the development of written procedures to standardize care. During World War II, nurse authors identified improved patient survival rates with the use of "shock wards" and recovery rooms. The 1950s saw the emergence of progressive patient care initiatives, through which patients were assigned to various levels of care (intensive, intermediate, self, long-term, or home care) based on patient acuity. The 1960s brought increasingly complex equipment and medication regimens, which created safety problems. Hospital-acquired infections were recognized. Unit-dose medication was instituted in the 1970s. In the next two decades, medication and nursing-procedure safety were emphasized. From 2000 to 2015, articles looked beyond human performance as causes of health care errors to systemic factors, such as poor communication, patient-nurse ratios, provider skill mix, disruptive or inappropriate provider behavior, shift work, and long working hours., Conclusions: Emphasis on patient safety increased as patient care became more complex. As nurses developed a professional identity, they often put a spotlight on safety concerns and solutions. The IOM report, which encouraged research focused on systemic solutions to errors, was instrumental in furthering the very culture of safety that the nursing profession had championed.

The use of K9 units within healthcare facilities will continue to increase as the violence within healthcare increases. K9s are a wise investment and are cost-effective. K9 units deter and prevent crime and violence at facilities. The typical K9 will be utilized for eight to ten years. The research demonstrates that facilities that have deployed K9 units have seen a reduction in crime and violence. A well trained K9 can not only patrol the exterior of a healthcare facility but also the patient care and service areas. As more hospitals and healthcare facilities look at non-lethal weapons to protect their officers, staff and guests, the use of K9 within healthcare will continue to rise.

The existing literature on donor screening in transfusion medicine tends to distinguish between social concerns about discrimination and medical concerns about safety. In this article, we argue that the bifurcation into social and medical concerns is problematic. We build our case on a qualitative study of the historical rise and current workings of safety practices in the Danish blood system. Here, we identify a strong focus on contamination in order to avoid 'tainted blood', at the expense of working with risks that could be avoided through enhanced blood monitoring practices. Of further significance to this focus are the social dynamics found at the heart of safety practices aimed at avoiding contamination. We argue that such dynamics need more attention, in order to achieve good health outcomes in transfusion medicine. Thus, we conclude that, to ensure continuously safe blood systems, we need to move beyond the bifurcation of the social and medical aspects of blood supply as two separate issues and approach social dynamics as key medical safety questions., (© The Author(s) 2014.)

The model of evidence-based practice (EBP) of Alice Magaw places the practice of nurse anesthesia as an early pioneer in patient safety and is prophetic to the aims of the Institute of Medicine (IOM). In its 2001 report, Crossing the Quality Chasm, the IOM identified 6 aims essential to improving the delivery of care. These aims include safety, effectiveness, patient-centeredness, timeliness, efficiency, and equity. Magaw used her vast expertise in anesthetic administration to develop protocols and a body of knowledge that could be used as a template for practitioners near and far. This early use of EBP principles places nurse anesthesia at the forefront of the model and the movement to provide high-quality care. Practitioners sought her practice model out as she demonstrated her techniques to visiting providers as well as through her published ideal anesthetics in the literature. She wrote, "Pioneers are noted for building upon a body of knowledge, establishing a model for continuous improvement, and exemplifying notable methods of research with subsequent documentation of their findings." Magaw exemplified the EBP model.

The roof collapse of the Maxima supermarket in Riga, Latvia on November 21, 2013 left 54 dead. This analysis identifies the disaster as a "safety crime." Neoliberal deregulatory measures, intensified by the global economic and financial crisis and a programme of radical austerity, together with corporate and state disregard of public safety and well-being, combined to produce the disaster. The wider context and underlying causes of catastrophic safety failure exemplify the inherently contradictory character of the neoliberal "Baltic model" of austerity, recently much in vogue with international policymakers in both Europe and the United States. The authors conclude that the current renewed drive by the European Commission towards reducing regulation for business, especially in the aftermath of the crisis, further justifies longstanding anti-regulatory preferences of neoliberal domestic elites, with the result that the costs of disregard for public safety are externalized onto the general populace.

Since 1992, the Peoples Training and Research Centre (PTRC) in Vadodara--founded by the author and his mentor Vijay Kanhere--has been a critical resource and key actor in the struggle to improve working conditions in India. Much of the PTRC's work has focused on occupational lung disease, particularly silicosis among agate craft workers. PTRC has brought medical services to workers, pressured industry sectors and associations to mitigate exposures (e.g., through ventilation), and been instrumental in legal action to bring financial recompense to victims. Faced with the reality that true prevention is in the hands of employers, PTRC's strategy has been to engage with and empower workers by educating them about hazards, safety practices, and their legal rights.

The article is devoted to the process of formation and development of CW destruction management system and medical support of professional activities of personnel. Founders of Medical department of the Federal Directorate for Safe Storage and Destruction of Chemical Weapons are presented. Main principles and ways of working of medical department in specific conditions are covered.

Purpose: Radium was the foundation of brachytherapy in the early decades of the 20th century. Despite being a most precious and perilous substance, it was mislaid with surprising frequency. This essay explores how it was lost, the efforts taken to recover it, and measures instituted to prevent mishandling., Methods and Materials: Review of contemporary literature, government publications, archives, and lay press., Results: Radium is a particularly dangerous substance because of its long half-life, its gaseous daughter (radon), and the high-energy emissions of its decay products. Despite the hazard, it was unregulated for most of the century. Any physician could obtain and administer it, and protocols for safe handling were generally lacking. Change came with appreciation of the danger, regulation, mandated training, and the institution of a culture of accountability. Unfortunately, careless management of medical radionuclides remains a global hazard., Conclusion: Responsible stewardship of radioactive material was not a high priority, for practitioners or the federal government, for much of the 20th century. As a result, large quantities of radium had gone astray, possibly subjecting the general public to continued radiation exposure. Lessons from the radium era remain relevant, as medical radionuclides are still mishandled., (Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

This paper provides a literature review of the use of donor human milk by hospitals in Australia and elsewhere from the postwar period through to the early 1980s, and establishes the context for a small study of practices which happened in that period. The latter study will be reported elsewhere. The purpose of this paper is to provide a resource for future comparison when the history of the new hospital milk banks of the 21st century is written. Relevant literature in English and two articles in French were accessed.

X-rays were discovered by Wilhelm Röntgen in 1895. Within one year, benefits of x-rays, such as visualization of fractures, and detriments, such as x-ray dermatitis, were recognized. Nobel Laureates Pierre and Marie Sklodowska Curie discovered the radioactive element radium in 1898, and a year later the application of radiation to cure cancer was reported. A significant price was paid for this: Marie Curie died of aplastic anemia related to her radiation exposure, and her daughter Irene Joliot Curie, Nobelist for radiochemical research, died of radiation-induced leukemia. Internationally developed radiation protection recommendations were formalized starting in the late 1920s. The increasing use of ionizing radiation in medical diagnosis and radiation therapy has brought significant societal benefits. Known risks of therapeutic radiation include coronary artery disease and secondary malignancy. However, recently concerns have been raised of possible very small but incremental increases in malignancies due to diagnostic medical radiation. Patients are largely unaware of, and referring physicians and even radiologists often underestimate, the carcinogenic effects of radiation. There is a need to determine the appropriateness of imaging tests that use ionizing radiation prior to performance; optimize imaging protocols to reduce unnecessary radiation; include patients in the decision process and encourage and enable them to track their radiation exposure; and promote education about medical radiation to patients, referring physicians, radiologists, and members of the public. The basic radiation protection principles of justification, optimization, and application of dose limits still pertain.

Commercial fishing is still the most dangerous occupation in the United States. Efforts to have more stringent safety regulations in this industry beginning in the 1960s, culminated in the Commercial Fishing Vessel Safety Act of 1988. The purpose of this paper is to provide a short history of the development of safety training in the United States and the current training infrastructure. This paper will also review studies available regarding the effectiveness of safety training in reducing fatalities among fishermen. The lack of familiarity and practice with marine survival equipment such as life rafts, immersion suits, and emergency-locating beacons has been noted in National Transportation Safety Board and US Coast Guard casualty reports as a contributing factor in fatalities. These reports have demonstrated the importance of not just having survival equipment onboard, but training in how to use it effectively in an emergency. There is evidence that safety training has made a measurable impact in surviving an emergency at sea and that recent training (within 5 years) is most effective in saving lives. More recently, studies have been completed to understand how skills may diminish over time since initial training.

This article analyses the health of workers engaged in oil exploration and exploitation in Colombia during the time of the so-called De Mares concession from 1916 to 1940. Periodisation was constructed which sought to account for yellow fever and tropical diseases within the sanitary situation related to oil exploration and exploitation during this period and region and how it became displaced from its central position by accidentally. The initial period was characterised by the lack of protection to which the workers were subjected at the start of oil-producing activities between 1916 and 1920. The second period was defined by implementing means of protection within the framework of a labour dispute accompanied by the sanitary problem's great burden between 1921 and 1928. The third period (1929 to 1940) dealt with entrepreneurial initiative becoming consolidated so as to make health become a control device, even though this was accompanied by the persistence of important labour disputes in which accidentality had a notable presence. Aspects are identified which should be gone into in greater depth for characterising oil-workers' health at the time of the De Mares concession.

In the Lancashire cotton textile industry, mule spinners were prone to a chronic and sometimes fatal skin cancer (often affecting the groin). The disease had reached epidemic proportions by the 1920s, which necessitated action by the government, employers, and trade unions. In contrast to previous accounts, this article focuses on the government's reaction to mule spinners' cancer. Using official records in the National Archives, the slow introduction of health and safety measures by the government is explored in detail. Although obstructionism by the employers played a key role, one of the reasons for government inaction was the ambiguity of scientific research on engineering oils. On the other hand, prolonged scientific research suited a government policy that was framed around self regulation - a policy that had proved largely ineffective by the 1950s.

Research has identified several factors that affect fear of crime in public space. However, the extent to which gender moderates the effectiveness of fear-reducing measures has received little attention. Using data from the Chicago Transit Authority Customer Satisfaction Survey of 2003, this study aims to understand whether train transit security practices and service attributes affect men and women differently. Findings indicate that, while the presence of video cameras has a lower effect on women's feelings of safety compared with men, frequent and on-time service matters more to male passengers. Additionally, experience with safety-related problems affects women significantly more than men. Conclusions discuss the implications of the study for theory and gender-specific policies to improve perceptions of transit safety.

With her background in gynaecological oncology, nurse Cathy Hughes is well suited to her job as cancer lead at the National Patient Safety Agency.

Control banding (CB) strategies offer simplified solutions for controlling worker exposures to constituents often encountered in the workplace. The original CB model was developed within the pharmaceutical industry; however, the modern movement involves models developed for non-experts to input hazard and exposure potential information for bulk chemical processes, receiving control advice as a result. The CB approach utilizes these models for the dissemination of qualitative and semiquantitative risk assessment tools being developed to complement the traditional industrial hygiene model of air sampling and analysis. It is being applied and tested in small- and medium-sized enterprises within developed countries and industrially developing countries; however, large enterprises have also incorporated these strategies within chemical safety programs. Existing research of the components of the most available CB model, the Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Essentials, has shown that exposure bands do not always provide adequate margins of safety, that there is a high rate of under-control errors, that it works better with dusts than with vapors, that there is an inherent inaccuracy in estimating variability, and that when taken together the outcomes of this model may lead to potentially inappropriate workplace confidence in chemical exposure reduction in some operations. Alternatively, large-scale comparisons of industry exposure data to this CB model's outcomes have indicated more promising results with a high correlation seen internationally. With the accuracy of the toxicological ratings and hazard band classification currently in question, their proper re-evaluation will be of great benefit to the reliability of existing and future CB models. The need for a more complete analysis of CB model components and, most importantly, a more comprehensive prospective research process remains. This analysis will be important in understanding implications of the model's overall effectiveness. Since the CB approach is now being used worldwide with an even broader implementation in progress, further research toward understanding its strengths and weaknesses will assist in its further refinement and confidence in its ongoing utility.

In the United States (U.S.), federal legislation requiring the use of safety-engineered sharp devices, along with an array of other protective measures, has played a critical role in reducing healthcare workers' (HCWs) risk of occupational exposure to bloodborne pathogens over the last 20 years. We present the history of U.S. regulatory and legislative actions regarding occupational blood exposures, and review evidence of the impact of these actions. In one large network of U.S. hospitals using the Exposure Prevention Information Network (EPINet) sharps injury surveillance program, overall injury rates for hollow-bore needles declined by 34%, with a 51% decline for nurses. The U.S. experience demonstrates the effectiveness of safety-engineered devices in reducing sharps injuries, and the importance of national-level regulations (accompanied by active enforcement) in ensuring wide-scale availability and implementation of protective devices to decrease healthcare worker risk., (Copyright (c) 2008 King Saud Bin Abdulaziz University for Health Sciences. All rights reserved.)

Perioperative nurses have developed specific expert nursing care practices. "Counting as caring" is certainly an approach in keeping with the perioperative nurse's guiding principle of beneficence (to do no harm). This article takes a retrospective look, from the first half of the last century through into the late 1960s, at the practice of counting and the influences that have changed it.

Since the discovery of fission, the notion of a chain reaction in a critical mass releasing massive amounts of energy has haunted physicists. The possibility of a bomb or a reactor prompted much of the early work on determining a critical mass, but the need to avoid an accidental critical excursion during processing or transport of fissile material drove much that took place subsequently. Because of the variety of possible situations that might arise, it took some time to develop adequate theoretical tools for criticality safety and the early assessments were based on direct experiment. Some extension of these experiments to closely similar situations proved possible, but it was not until the 1960s that theoretical methods (and computers to run them) developed enough for them to become reliable assessment tools. Validating such theoretical methods remained a concern, but by the end of the century they formed the backbone of criticality safety assessment. This paper traces the evolution of these methods, principally in the UK and USA, and summarises some related work concerned with the nature of criticality accidents and their radiological consequences. It also indicates how the results have been communicated and used in ensuring nuclear safety.

The treatment of auditiory tube chronic catarrh in XIX century by pharmagological drugs, by special apparatuses of surprising technical sophistication, by electrisation and faradisation is discussed first of all. The dilatation of auditory tube by dilators was the diagnostical and therapeutical methods, especially preferenced by Victor Urbantschitsch, Hermann Schwartze, Jean P. Bonnafonte, Albert Calmettes and Bronisław Taczanowski, Teodor Heiman and Samuel Meyerson. The dilators were building of celluloid, whale-bone, silver and were absorbed by argentum nitrate, vaseline. The technique, difficulties and effects of dilatation are described in more detail. The complications of this operation is presented finally.

The authors have created a radiology quality map to help understand the opportunities for improvement in the radiologic safety, reliability, quality, and appropriateness of examinations and interventions. It entails 9 steps with dozens of specific opportunities for improving care to patients. The radiology profession has an obligation to robustly document and improve quality and safety in its practice.

Background: Cigarettes are the leading cause of fatal fires in the USA and are associated with one in four fire deaths. Although the technology needed to make fire-safe cigarettes has been available for many years, progress has been slow on legislative and regulatory fronts to require the tobacco industry to manufacture fire-safe cigarettes., Method and Results: We conducted a case study, drawing on data from tobacco industry documents, archives, and key informant interviews to investigate tobacco industry strategies for thwarting fire-safe cigarette legislation in the US Congress. We apply a theoretical framework that posits that policymaking is the product of three sets of forces: interests, institutions, and ideas, to examine tobacco industry behaviour, with a special focus on their and others' attempts to court fire service organisations, including firefighters' unions as allies. We discuss the implications of our findings for future policy efforts related to fire-safe cigarettes and other tobacco control issues., Conclusions: Tobacco control advocates ought to: continue efforts to align key interest groups, including the firefighters unions; contest tobacco industry "diversionary" science tactics; and pursue a state based legislative strategy for fire-safe cigarettes, building towards national legislation.

In 2005, the Health Physics Society celebrates its 50th anniversary. During its half century of existence, the Society has evolved from a small group of operationally oriented radiation protection scientists into an organization of several thousand with a recognized and respected peer reviewed journal. The bold decision to form an organization devoted to radiation safety in the United States spurred the formation of such societies in other countries and led to the formation of an international confederation of national societies, which has facilitated scientific communication and exchange worldwide. It also led to the formation of a separate body for the certification of health physicists, which in turn has grown into an academy with more than 1,000 members, and was instrumental in providing basic information establishing the need for a registry of radiation protection technologists.

Shortly after the discovery of x rays by Wilhelm Konrad Roentgen in 1895, and the isolation of the element radium by Pierre and Marie Curie three years later, the fascination with and potential for an array of uses of ionizing radiation in medicine, science, and technology was born. As with any new technology, there was a need to balance both the beneficial and potential detrimental effects of uses of these new technologies for the advancement of humankind. In the early days, radiation hazards were not well understood. Over the decades increasing concerns in the scientific community and lay population demanded that standardized guidance and recommendations be developed for the use of ionizing radiation. Today, U.S. radiation protection standards and recommendations to protect the occupational worker, members of the general public, and the environment are numerous and complex. This review summarizes the history of the development and application of radiation protection standards and regulations to assure the safe use of radiation and radioactive materials. The evolution and roles of international and national scientific recommending and regulatory organizations that shape U.S. radiation protection policy are described and discussed.

The science of safety is well established in such disciplines as the automotive and aviation industry. In this brief history of safety science as it pertains to patient care, we review remote and recent publications that have guided the maturation of this field that has particular relevance to the complex structure of systems, personnel, and therapies involved in caring for the critically ill.

Shortly after the discovery of x rays by Wilhelm Konrad Roentgen in 1895, and the isolation of the element radium by Pierre and Marie Curie three years later, the fascination with and potential for an array of uses of ionizing radiation in medicine, science, and technology was born. As with any new technology, there was a need to balance both the beneficial and potential detrimental effects of uses of these new technologies for the advancement of humankind. In the early days, radiation hazards were not well understood. Over the decades increasing concerns in the scientific community and lay population demanded that standardized guidance and recommendations be developed for the use of ionizing radiation. Today, U.S. radiation protection standards and recommendations to protect the occupational worker, members of the general public, and the environment are numerous and complex. This review summarizes the history of the development and application of radiation protection standards and regulations to assure the safe use of radiation and radioactive materials. The evolution and roles of international and national scientific recommending and regulatory organizations that shape U.S. radiation protection policy are described and discussed.