Last week I wrote about a proposed Bush policy to allow increased levels of coal dust at some mine sites and require that employees wear respirators. At first blush, such a policy might make sense — if workers are not exposed to higher dust levels because of the respirators, there’s no problem. The respirator manufacturer 3M criticized the policy change, however, suggesting that it’s probably a very bad idea. After all, why wouldn’t 3M support a policy change that would increase the sales of its product?
Quite a few readers suggested there may be more to the story. Indeed, as I speculated in the initial post, 3M appears to have a very good reason to discourage the policy change: fear of liability. As recently chronicled in U.S. News & World Report, 3M already faces substantial litigation alleging that its respirators fail to provide adequate protection from some contaminants. Moreover, I’ve been told there is a relatively high rate of respirators failing due to either improper use or imperfect fitting (or some combination thereof). So, it’s possible that the rule would, in practice, result in greater coal dust exposure. And even if it did not, 3M might be wary of promoting its respirators in an industry with high rates of worker illness, in this case black lung disease, and therefore a potential for substantial liability exposure.
Thanks to all those who wrote in on this matter — and there were alot of you.
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