Overall Program Assessment - Agriculture Forestry and Fishing Research at NIOSH - page 51

• Wisconsin Act 455, passed in 1996, prohibits people younger than 16 years
old from driving farm tractors on public roads until they complete a tractor and
machinery certification course; it was based on Agricultural Health Promotion
System research in Wisconsin.
• MMWR article in November 1999 about illnesses associated with pesticides
used to control Medfly infestations (CDC, 1999a) led the U.S. Department of Agri-
culture (USDA) and the Florida Department of Agriculture to adopt non-pesticide
methods for Medfly control.
• Washington State Supreme Court mandated in 2000 that the Washington
State Department of Labor and Industries develop a cholinesterase (ChE) monitor-
ing program for workers handling acutely toxic pesticides. Research supported by
the AFF Program in California discovered substantial limitations on the accuracy
of ChE field testing and led to a new approach to optimize clinical determinations.
In 1995, a Technical Advisory Group formed by the Washington department found
that a ChE monitoring program was technically feasible and necessary to protect
worker health. The rule was implemented by the department in February 2004.
Federal policies in which AFF Program research informed decisionmaking:
• The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) used a 1976
NIOSH document for a proposed logging standard as a basis of the 1994 OSHA
logging standard (29 CFR 1910.266). From July 1989 to October 1990, NIOSH
provided three sets of comments to OSHA supporting a proposed logging rule.
OSHA's final logging standard incorporated most of the comments.
• In 1999, the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) initiated a Dockside Enforcement
Program to identify and correct safety hazards identified by NIOSH in crab fishing.
The program has been “institutionalized” by USCG.
• The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) banned chlorpyrifos
for residential use in 2000 partly on the basis of AFF Program neurological effect
studies.
• On October 25, 1994, the AFF Program submitted comments to the U.S.
Department of Labor (DOL) in response to an advance notice of proposed rule-
making regarding child labor. In its comments, the AFF Program provided recom-
mendations for new hazardous orders for both nonagricultural and agricultural
industries.
• The Youth Worker Protection Act introduced in both 2003 and 2005 by
Representative Tom Lantos intended to revise child-labor law was based largely on
NIOSH hazardous order recommendations released in 2002. In 2005, the CARE Act
(HR 3482) introduced by Representative Lucille Roybal-Allard proposed changes
in child-labor laws in agriculture and identified youth farm injury data collected