In addition to other cases where the Bush adminstration has put profits over the safety of people, the Pittsburgh Post Gazette has just printed an article that investigates how the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) is using an historically strict interpretation of the rules in order to "lower" the number of fatalities related to mining. Individuals whose deaths in prior administrations would have been attributed to mining activites are increasingly being listed as having died from natural causes or are not being counted because the indvidual is not a mine employee. In the last four years the MSHA has determined that 72 people who died on or near mine properties were non-mining related fatalities, but as the article notes, there are serious questions about the veracity of the number.
For all deaths that occur on mining properties, the MSHA makes a determination as to whether the death is "chargeable" or "non-chargeable". Chargeable incidents are those related to the operation of the mine. Historically, precedent has helped determine what qualifies as a mining related fatality, but under the Bush adminstration the interpretation of the rules has become more strict, moving cases that where once considered chargeable into the non-chargeable category. One example the paper gives,
In May 1995, Tory Davis, 5, and his father, Timothy Grace, who were inside a converted school bus serving as a lunchroom, were crushed under a collapsed highwall at a sand and gravel mine in Wenatchee, Wash. On its Web site, MSHA lists Tory and his father as the 17th and 18th deaths that year at metal/nonmetal operations.
Yet MSHA does not count the October 2003 death of Cindy Foglesong, who had accompanied her friend to a western Illinois mine where he worked. She was crushed to death when a limestone ceiling in the mine collapsed on her.
The author explains
The distinction is important because, unlike a death from a roof fall, there is no public follow-up investigative report that spells out the circumstances or recommends steps that might prevent deaths.
Dr. Anthony Robbins, of Tufts University, a former head of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health and former president of the American Public Health Association elaborates on the importance of the distinction,
If its function is prevention, which it should be, then to make this not chargeable misses the opportunity to focus on some aspects which could prevent deaths in the future
I wish I could say that I am surprised at this, but tragically it appears par for the course for this administration.