Advocacy

ACOEM applauds President-Elect Biden's recent Statement on the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Occupational Safety and Health Act; expresses hope that this represents the beginning of the revitalization of OSHA.

The American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine offered comments on Chapter 7: Health, wellbeing, and the changing structure of communities of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Working Group II Contribution to the Sixth Assessment Report.

On December 2, ACOEM extended its congratulations to President-elect Biden and expressed its hopes for the success of the new administration. In the letter, ACOEM offered to provide assistance to the new administration in its response to the COVID-19 pandemic,and urged that OSHA be directed to vigorously enforce existing standards and regulations.

ACOEM recommends that SAMHSA withdraw the proposed that would include hair testing in the Mandatory Guidelines for Federal Workplace Drug Testing Programs because the proposed process will discourage most employers from using hair testing and will not enhance safety.

On October 20, in a letter to the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME), ACOEM President Beth A. Baker, MD, FACOEM, urged that occupational medicine be identified as a distinct specialty separate from preventive medicine on the ACGME website.

ACOEM providesd comments to the National Academies on the Preliminary Framework for Allocation of COVID-19 Vaccine. The College endorses the intention to vaccinate occupational groups in phases based upon their role in maintaining health care and other essential services while also considering their risk of occupationally acquired infection. 
 

In response to the EPA’s supplemental notice of proposed rulemaking on “Strengthening Transparency in Regulatory Science, the American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine expressed its concerns about the proposed rule. The College believes that this proposal is “inconsistent with the proper conduct of scientific inquiry, and we do not believe that additional burdensome peer-review steps are likely to strengthen confidence in the evidence base for new environmental regulations.”

The American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine has voiced its strong support for H.R. 6559, the COVID–19 Every Worker Protection Act of 2020. This act would direct OSHA to issue an Emergency Temporary Standard within 7 days of passage that sets requirements for how workplaces must safeguard all workers from exposure, to COVID-19 in the workplace.

The American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine is concerned that President Trump's decision to utilize the Defense Production Act to compel meat processing plants to remain open and functioning during COVID-19 will be used to shield meat processing plants from liability for the health and safety of their workers.