The Environmental Issues Committee (EIC) presented the Rachel Carson Award to Garrett Brown and the Maquiladora Health and Safety Support Network (MHSSN) at AIHce 2010 in Denver, Colo. Brown is a founding member and primary coordinator for MHSSN activities.
MHSSN is a volunteer network of about 400 occupational health and safety professionals who have placed their names on a resource list to provide information, technical assistance and on-site instruction regarding workplace hazards in the 3,000 "maquiladora" (foreign-owned assembly) plants along the U.S.-Mexico border. Network members, including industrial hygienists, toxicologists, epidemiologists, occupational physicians and nurses, and health educators, among others, are donating their time and expertise to create safer and healthier working conditions for the one million maquiladora workers employed by primarily U.S.-owned transnational corporations along Mexico's northern border from Matamoros to Tijuana. Since 2000, the Network has expanded its work to include projects in Indonesia, China and Central America.
Established in 1987, the Rachel Carson Award is the highest honor bestowed upon an environmental health and safety (EHS) professional by the AIHA Environmental Issues Committee. It is presented to EHS individuals or groups who have attained outstanding success and distinction in their Environmental and Industrial Health and Safety business, profession or life's work.
The EIC is accepting nominations for the 2011 Rachel Carson Award, which will be presented at AIHce 2011 in Portland, Ore., May 11-15. If you or someone you know is a qualified recipient, please contact Patty Beach for more information or see the nomination form on the committee web page.
