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Court Orders OSHA To Release Toxic Exposure Database

Press release: “The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has wrongfully withheld data documenting years of toxic exposures to workers and its own inspectors, according to a federal court ruling posted today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). As a result, the world’s largest compendium of measurements of occupational exposures to toxic substances – more than 2 million analyses conducted during some 75,000 OSHA workplace inspections since 1979 – should now be available to researchers and policymakers. Each year, an estimated 40,000 U.S. workers die prematurely because of exposures to toxic substances on the job.”

  • U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey, decision by Judge Mary Cooper, Finkel v. Department of Labor, June 29, 2007 (28 pages, PDF)
  • Fact sheet summarizing key points in this case
  • Backgrounder on Dr. Adam Finkel forcing OSHA to admit beryllium exposure of its own inspectors
  • Original FOIA request filed by Dr. Finkel
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