This is rather frightening and also disturbing, although not surprising. It has been known for a long time that people can become ill from “second hand chemo” but now the subject is finally getting some attention.

Thanks to InvestigateWest, the story has now come out across the cyberwaves. MSNBC picked it up, as did the Seattle Times and a few others.

What is most disturbing is that the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration does not regulate exposure to chemotherapy in the workplace, despite multiple studies documenting ongoing contamination and exposures and their potentially deadly consequences for human health. Studies going back 30 and 40 years ago have already shown this, but amazingly enough, OSHA has no regulations in place.

And it’s not because it’s a girl thing. I know, that’s what a lot of you are thinking–that this mainly affects nurses and nurses are a bunch of powerless little girls, so who cares if they “catch” cancer from their patients. Well, one of the primary targets of second hand chemo are pharmacists, a profession well represented by the male gender. Another healthcare profession at risk are veterinarians.

So why is OSHA lacking here? Why do individual hospitals, clinics, offices, etc, have to mandate their own regulations? And for the ones that don’t, there is no penalty.

This video is really sad, and shocking.

That’s what I said in April, and here it is July. How did it get to be July? I don’t know, was I asleep? It seemed to have just passed by in a blur. Especially now, that the weather has abruptly changed from chilly and rainy to hot and sunny. It’s as if someone flicked a switch right after the 4th of July (rained on the 4th, by the way). Now clear skies, temps into the 80s, and the tomatoes are going crazy.

I have been crazy busy with work. I am not complaining, especially since I haven’t gone out of my way looking for extra work. It just keeps rolling in and I’m barely keeping up. I used to do this when I worked as a nurse. When it was busy, I would work double shifts, day and night, get all that overtime and double time pay, etc. And then, when things slowed down in the unit, I didn’t worry about getting canceled or losing shifts.

Same with writing. I figure why not take the work while its being offered, especially since its been from clients I have worked with before. So its pretty much been non-stop since I got back from South Africa, plus my garden has taken up a lot of time. Because it was so rainy and cold, I couldn’t move a lot of the seedlings outside and so, had to transplant them to larger pots. Some were transplanted more than once.

Well, I’m going to make an effort to get back to blogging, although I am probably going to concentrate more on certain topics.