OSHA Ordered to Release Toxicity Data

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) now has a reporting problem of its own. A rejected Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request by a former inspector seeking information on beryllium exposure has resulted in the Agency being forced to hand over more than 25 years of toxicity data.

US District Judge Mary Cooper ordered the Agency to disclose the information on the basis that the public interest in disclosing the information will increase understanding about beryllium sensitization. The Labor Department - the department responsible for OSHA - is reviewing the decision.

Dr. Adam Finkel was a chief regulator and Regional Administrator at OSHA for 8 years between 1995 and 2003. He left OSHA when he disclosed the Agency's decision not to offer medical testing to its inspectors who had been exposed to beryllium dust.

His FOIA request sought the entire database on toxic exposure. Dr. Finkel settled his whistleblower case with OSHA and a small group of inspectors were eventually offered medical tests in 2004. There are still OSHA inspectors who have not been offered testing. Since 2004, Finkel has been a professor at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey School of Public Health.

OSHA has been notifying companies potentially affected by this lawsuit since April, 2006 and via a notice on its website. In the letter, the Agency appealed to companies to submit detailed objections to the disclosure of the information and took the position that trade secrets could be compromised. The Labor Department argues that in addition to that position, that its inspectors privacy would be compromised and that turning over the documentation would make it less likely to get companies to cooperate with an OSHA inspection.

The database contains information gathered from workplace inspections from 1979 forward.