Tuesday, April 22, 1997

Government trying to cut farm-youth mishaps, illnesses

By JOHN D. McCLAIN

Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - About 100 youths are killed on the farm annually and 100,000 are injured in agriculture-related activities - casualties that workplace-safety researchers want to prevent.

The government's National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health today was launching a $5 million national research program designed to protect children on farms from illness, injury and death.

About 1.3 million youths below age 20 lived on farms and ranches in 1991 and 800,000 others were members of hired farm-worker families, including migrant and seasonal workers.

Many fall victim each year when they become trapped beneath overturned tractors, entangled in heavy farm machinery, involved in accidents with livestock, suffocate in grain bins, fall or suffer electric shock. Others become ill from exposure to pesticides, farm fuels and noxious gases.

Details of the research program were being announced at a town meeting in Marshfield, Wis., attended by NIOSH Director Linda Rosenstock and Rep. David Obey, D-Wis.

"One of our major objectives is to air the problem," Rosenstock said in an interview. "The second is to accumulate the best available data to the extent of the problem so that we can understand what caused the events with the ultimate goal of preventing them. Accidents are inherently preventable."

In addition to today's town meeting, Rosenstock said her agency will reach out to farm families and workers, the agricultural industry, health professionals and educators for information and recommendations.

"Farming is one of the most dangerous industries in the United States," said a NIOSH fact sheet. Yet, "until now, there has been no national coordinated effort to protect young people in the production agriculture industry."

Unlike non-farm businesses, where young workers are protected by Labor Department regulations, most farm youth have no formal safety shield. An earlier NIOSH study found that only about 5 percent are covered by safety regulations of the Occupational Safety and Health Act.

"It is one of the few occupational settings where children may actively participate in work typically performed by adults," the agency said.

Health and Human Services Secretary Donna E. Shalala said the new NIOSH program "recognizes that farmers and their children embody a unique tradition of hard work, responsibility and love for the land."

"This is a heritage that we want to nurture, while assuring safety and health for a new generation of farmers," she added.

The program is designed to identify factors that put children at serious risk of injury on the farm and to develop better information about the prevalence and circumstances of such injuries.

It also is intended to provide new approaches for raising the awareness about safety risks for children on farms and information to help farm families, communities and organizations safeguard young people.

In addition to its own studies, NIOSH will award research grants to outside institutions. It also plans to create a National Center for the Prevention of Childhood Agricultural Injury.