Ethics in Industrial Hygiene National Conference in Industrial Hygiene February 14, 2014

1. Hazard and Risk Assessment
Ethics in Industrial Hygiene
National Conference in Industrial Hygiene
February 14, 2014
Maharshi Mehta, CSP, CIH
International Safety Systems, Inc.,
Washingtonville New York, USA
www.issehs.com

2. Agenda
 Introduction to Ethics in Industrial Hygiene
 Current Situation
 Elements
 The need
– Professional
– Personal
 Religion and ethics
– Place of worship (temple, synagogue, mosques VS Workplace)
– Gods Vs Stakeholders
 Benefits - Case Studies
 Conclusions
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3. Current situation
 Exposure control decisions seem to be made
based on erroneous data at 50%+ workplaces
– One or more of reproducible, representative and
reliable data missing
 Issues with sampling and analytical methods
 Greed has no lid
– Knowingly results are delivered what company or
client is looking at some of the workplaces
– Financial gains at the cost of integrity
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4. Issues with sampling and
analytical methods
 Collect more samples in limited time
– Exposure numbers, no indicating on what is contributing to
exposure
 Reproducibility
– 1 sample
 Reliability
– Calibration
– Laboratories analyzing samples
 Representativeness
– Sampling durations
 Focus on monitoring and not on exposure controls
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5. The Need-Professional
 Impact on Stakeholders
– Employee
 Reputation
– ABC Environmental company in China
 Trust
 Financial and standard of living
 Business Growth – word of mouth
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6. The Need-Other
 Impact on Family, Society and Nation
 Family
– Values in children and other family members
– Bonding and benefits of bonding
– Friends
– Ever widening virtuous circle
 Nation
– Erosion of values
– Economical impact
 Impact on individual
– Effective utilization of latent ability
– Peace of mind
– Growth
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7. Gods VS Workers and Family
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8. Temples Vs. Workplaces and
Homes-True Haven
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9. Examples All Around Us
- Cost to Shareholders
Enron collapsed in 2001 –
costing shareholders
$74B and prompting
Sarbane-Oxley
Accounting Regulation.
WorldCom-$11B.

10. How Do Professionals Use a Code?
 As “The Law?”
-- (Enforceable v. not enforceable?)
 As a “set of guidelines?”
 As a means to set a baseline standard of
practice?
 As a way to raise the level of practice?

11. Code History
 Originally Adopted – Early 80’s
 Revised – Mid 90’s
– Cannons with Interpretive Guidelines
– Joint IH Ethics Education Committee (JIHEEC)
 March 2006 Meeting
– ABIH, ACGIH, AIH, AIHA & JIHEEC
 ABIH – Legally Enforceable Code of Ethics –
May 2007
– Diplomates, Applicants & Examinees

12.  A guideline for professional ethical
decisions
 Not a black and white set of rules
 Not a replacement for good judgment
http://www.abih.org/downloads/ABIHCodeo
fEthics.pdf

13. IH Ethical Misconduct Examples
 Borrowing from another’s proposal
 Deliberate failure to control data quality
 Failure to protect confidential data
 Release of results of study before peer review
 Avoiding competition by refusing to share data
 Research designed to favor a specific result
 Fabrication of data
 Deliberate failure to disclose sources of
support

14. Ethical Dilemma
Exposure assessment for formaldehyde in manufactured housing
is contracted and scheduled for a specific week with an industrial
hygiene consultant. The contract is for the collection of the data
only. The hygienist will not have access to the analytical results or
be involved in writing the report. The client changes the date
twice for reasons not explained. The industrial hygienist arrives
on site ready to conduct the study, but it begins to rain. Rain is
projected for the entire week of the study and the relative
humidity is projected to be between 85-95%.

15. A call to the laboratory and the sorbent tube
media manufacturer confirms that the high
humidity environment will skew the results low
if the data is used. Upon informing the client of
the current circumstances for performing the
exposure assessment, the client complains that
the hygienist is being too cautious and should
collect the data anyways.

16. What are Potential Responses?
 Refuse to collect any further samples
 Collect and submit the samples and contact the
laboratory to report field conditions
 Collect the samples and report nothing
 Collect the samples and require that the client
submit them to the laboratory

17. What are the Likely Outcomes
of the Responses?
 Integrity of the Samples
 Integrity of the Client
 Role of the Laboratory and Media
Manufacturer
 Long-term Responsibility – Social Justice
Issues

18. Ethical Dilemma
You are bound by a contract to protect
the confidentiality of the project for
which you are hired. Because of the
complexity of the IH issues, you wish
to obtain input from a professional
peer regarding the technical aspects
of the project.

19. What are Potential Responses?
 Ignore your desire to obtain input from a professional
peer because it could be considered an ethical breach of
your clients confidentiality.
 Discuss the project without disclosing confidential
details such as the name of the company, individual
names, proprietary or other.
 Discuss in full disclosure with a professional peer who is
unrelated to the project and lives thousands of miles
away.
 Consider publishing your quandaries in the next edition
of the Synergist.

20. What are the Likely Outcomes of
the Responses?

21. Ethical Dilemma
 You witness what you feel is a
violation of the code by one of your
professional peers who is a CIH. She
agrees with her boss to date a safety
review earlier than it was conducted,
so it lines up closer to when the issue
was identified.

22. What are Potential Responses
 Contact anyone you can think of along with ABIH,
and/or AIHA and report the incident.
 Submit a written allegation of a breach of ethical
duty or professional responsibility to the chair of the
JIHEEC.
 Call the AIHA President to personally complain.
 Explain to the peer that you feel they are acting
unethically and give them an opportunity to correct
the situation before taking further action. If it
remains unresolved then you could submit a written
allegation of a breach of ethical duty or professional
responsibility to ABIH.

23. Ethical Dilemma
You are invited by a vendor who
provides a majority of your industrial
hygiene laboratory services to play
golf and have dinner at an “exclusive”
country club.

24. What are Potential Responses?
 Accept the offer and ask if he wouldn’t mind
throwing in a sleeve of balls and a hat.
 Investigate your company’s policy on accepting
vendor gifts and determine the best course of
action with your supervisor.
 Decide to accept the offer, but only if you can
pay for your own green fees and dinner.
 Accept the invitation but insist that the bill be
paid in cash instead of a credit card to avoid
leaving a “paper trail”.

25. Ethical Dilemma
As an IH consultant you are asked by a major
insurance carrier to sample for mold in a
residential setting. One of the home’s
occupants is recovering from cancer and
recently had a bone marrow transplant.
Moderate to extensive visible mold is present
throughout the home and you recommend
relocating the family. The insurance carrier
disagrees and asks you “to keep your mouth
shut” or they will take legal action.

26. What are Potential Responses?
 Wonder why you chose to be a consultant and run out of
the building screaming.
 Keep your mouth shut and pretend it never happened.
 Ignore the insurance carriers threats and immediately
notify the occupants to vacate the premises.
 Contact a close friend, attorney and/or mentor and ask
for additional advice and direction.

27. Challenges encountered-Ethical
Approaches adopted
 Filter fell off during sampling operator connected upside down
 Calibrator did not function – only 3 days in Australia
 Middle man ask for % of the total project cost
 After leaving company, professionals learns about environmental
violations
 Collect 10 samples/day by calling operators in lunch room and
remove samples at the end of day
 Spray welding exposure below limit-of Cr3 and Ni elemental –
potential for hexchrome insoluble Ni exposure to exceed OEL exits,
recommend RPE,
 Toluene exposure likely to exceed somewhere in Europe
 Pharma clients ask not to mention exposure is above OEL in report
 Friend for 20+ years ask not to write about system not working just
list exposure above limit for new operation
©International Safety Systems, Inc.
www.issehs.com

28. Case Study: Construction Safety
 EHS professional in financial crisis finally gets job in
middle east
 Manager sends letter to all EHS managers has full
authority to even close the work for safety violations and
calls EHS professionals in office and conveys – sit in the
office don’t go out we will give you salary-relax and
enjoy
 What would you do?
 Mobile Crane is to be used at site without testing –
Managers threatens EHS person you will loose job if you
insist on testing, what would you do?
©International Safety Systems, Inc.
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29.  How Good People Make Tough Choices, Rushworth M.
Kidder,1995
 Business Ethics, Richard De George
 “Ethical Issues for Industrial Hygienists: Survey Results and
Suggestions”, Laura A. Goldberg & Michael R. Greenberg,
March 1993 AIHA Journal
 “Observations of Ethical Misconduct Among Industrial
Hygienists in England”, Burgess G. L., Mullen, D., AIHA
Journal (63) March/April 2002
 ABIH Executive Director, Lynn O’Donnell, 2011 Data
 http://www.abih.org/downloads/ABIHCodeofEthics.pdf
 Lectures shared by Jeff Throckmorton, David Roskelley,
Barbara Weeks, Pam Greenley, Steve Rucker

30. Beyond Reading - Action
JIHEEC Mission:
 “Promote an awareness and understanding of the
enforceable code of ethics published by the
ABIH”
 Not an enforcement group or resolution board
 Publishes case studies of ethical dilemmas in the
Synergist

31. Business Ethics: Codes
 Premise
– Business integrity earns respect and brings peace in our lives
– Transparency and ethics have positive impact on generations to
come
 Codes
– Do not give, receive bribe in any form cash, favor, kind, gift, %
commission
– Do not compromise on identified risk in reporting, among other
things
– Ensure sound basis
– Offer to take client out for lunch/dinner once, do not push. Offer
to pay for lunch/dinner, do not push, go “Dutch”

32. Confidentiality Codes
 Significance
– Most Sensitive information
– Client’s trust on us
 Do not communicate verbally or in writing what you saw at site especially
process details and findings with any one out side ISS and in ISS with
affected persons only
 Data protection: Password when you are not around in your laptop, no one
should have access to your hard disk, place relevant information in
centralized storage and delete from file
 Digital images:
– Obtain permission
– Do not take if it does not serve purpose
– Avoid taking entire process large area, take what you want
– Do not show images to ANYONE. Delete them once purpose is
served
– Keep only good images and provide to Chirantan or centralised
storage and then delete all images

33. One can make decent leaving even by
following business ethics-Then
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34. Now
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35. Conclusion
Listen to inner
voice and
implement
©International Safety Systems, Inc.
www.issehs.com