
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, November 5, 1994                   TAG: 9411080016
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                  LENGTH: Medium

OSHA STUDYING RULES FOR REPETITIVE INJURIES

The Labor Department hopes to pass regulations aimed at protecting workers from ``repetitive motion'' injuries before the end of President Clinton's first term, an official said Friday. But even then, the standard is sure to be challenged in court.

``Our goal is to develop a proposal which is flexible, practical and realistic,'' said Joseph Dear, the assistant labor secretary in charge of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. ``We will take it to public hearings and listen carefully.''

Dear said he hoped the process could be completed ``before the end of the first term of the president,'' or January 1997. But even then, Dear said, a court challenge is ``a certainty.''

OSHA has developed a summary of what will be proposed federal regulations that would require employers to address potential ``ergonomic'' hazards in the workplace using a checklist of various risk factors and to correct them within 60 days.

Almost 90,000 U.S. workers lost time from their jobs in 1992 because of repetitive strain injuries, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. RSI accounted for about 4 percent of the 2.3 million total cases involving lost work days, BLS said.

But Dr. Linda Rosenstock, director of the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health, said the bureau's data underestimate the true incidence of RSI because its numbers come from employer logs. She said a recently completed national health interview survey found approximately 700,000 cases of medically diagnosed carpal tunnel syndrome, a repetitive strain injury of the wrist. Of those, approximately 350,000 were thought to be work-related, Rosenstock said

Disorders associated with ``repeated trauma'' are the fastest-growing category of work-related illness, according to the BLS. Such cases made up 21 percent of occupational illnesses in 1982 but jumped to 62 percent in 1992.

by CNB