For Immediate Release
Thursday, October 16, 1997
OSHA Proposes Tuberculosis Standard After Five-Year Effort, AFSCME Calls It "Long Overdue"
Washington, DC —After five years of pressure from the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), AFL-CIO and other groups committed to fighting for worker safety, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) issued a proposed tuberculosis (TB) standard today to guard against on-the-job exposure to the life-threatening disease.
AFSCME, as the nation’s largest public employee and health care workers union, has taken a leading role in fighting for a TB standard. AFSCME, along with a coalition of other unions, petitioned OSHA for this standard in 1993. AFSCME represents over 300,000 health care workers and tens of thousands of AFSCME members work in prisons, schools, homeless shelters, social services departments and other places where the disease has spread.
"We heartily welcome this proposal," said AFSCME International President Gerald W. McEntee. "The TB standard is long overdue. We know from experience that the control measures in this proposal are needed, that they work, and we know from experience OSHA needs the ability to enforce these measures to prevent any more outbreaks among workers. We urge OSHA to work swiftly to implement these workplace protections. Further delay will only mean more sickness and more deaths."
"I’m relieved that OSHA has issued the TB standard," said Leo Dickerman, a New York State corrections officer and member of AFSCME Local 2691, who contracted a drug-resistant form of TB in 1994. "My doctors have told me that if I contract TB again I may not survive, since it’s unlikely the drugs used to treat TB will work on me a second time. The new TB standard may prevent another worker from contracting this illness, and save lives in the long run."
Peter Petrosino, a corrections officer at Auburn Correctional Facility in Albany and member of AFSCME Council 82’s Local 1447, was not so fortunate. He died after being exposed to multi-drug resistant TB in October, 1991. Petrosino, a 22-year veteran of the prison system, was exposed to the disease while providing security for inmates being treated at the University Hospital of the Health Science Center in Syracuse. Between March and October of 1991, eighteen of the inmates died of TB.
OSHA estimates that 13 million people in the U.S. (6.5% of the adult population) are currently infected with TB. In 1996, the Atlanta-based Centers For Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) received reports of 21,327 active TB cases. The union maintains that there are many more cases of TB that do not get reported. One in four inmates in a correctional facility is estimated to be infected.
The proposed standard, which will become law following input received during public hearings over the next year, was based on guidelines issued by the CDC in 1990 with revisions proposed by AFSCME and other organizations. Under the proposed standard, employers of covered facilities would be required to:
- develop a written exposure control and response plan, including the implementation of any controls that would prevent further exposure;
- offer all employees in OSHA-covered facilities a free TB skin test on work time, at a time and place convenient to the employee, with test results read and analyzed by a trained professional;
- provide employee training in recognizing the signs and symptoms of infection; modes of transmission and its prevention; identifying tasks or areas that might increase exposure risk; isolation procedures for suspected cases; the link between HIV infection and TB; and
- control exposure for patients, clients, and inmates in hospitals, prisons or nursing homes where there are high-risk groups with stays of long duration.
Covered facilities include all hospitals, prisons, homeless shelters, long-term elderly care facilities, hospices, drug treatment facilities, and labs handling TB specimens. This affects both the private sector and states requiring public sector OSHA coverage. Currently, 23 states including Maryland and Virginia have federally approved public sector OSHA coverage.
