Texas reaches $10B opioid settlement
- Texas is joining finalized opioid agreements with CVS and Walgreens totaling $10.7 billion nationally.
- CVS is paying $5 billion, while Walgreens must pay out $5.7 billion.
- This agreement is one of several opioid settlements involving Walgreens, CVS, Allergan, Walmart, Mallinckrodt, Teva, Endo, Johnson & Johnson, and McKinsey.
- Texas and its local governments are slated to receive over $304 million from CVS and $340 million from Walgreens.
Savings in Vermont
- Vermont businesses will see another rate decrease in workers’ compensation insurance in 2023.
- This will mark the seventh consecutive year for such cuts.
- The rate reduction, which takes effect April 1, will save Vermont employers more than $11 million in premiums in 2023.
- Vermont employers will also pay nearly 47 percent less in workers’ compensation premiums than they did in 2016.
Airport workers sucked into engine ignored warnings
- A worker killed at an Alabama airport was exposed to multiple warnings about the dangers of being near running jet engines, federal investigators said.
- A preliminary report revealed that workers were warned to stay clear of running jet engines when planes are stopped on the ground.
- The employee was on the tarmac and had apparently set up a safety cone at the rear of the parked aircraft right before she was pulled into an engine and killed.
- The Communications Workers of America identified the employee as Courtney Edwards, 34, of Alabama.
Miners struggle to get workers’ comp
- Miners in Northern Ontario diagnosed with workplace-related chronic obstructive pulmonary disease are having a difficult time obtaining workers’ compensation.
- Smoking has traditionally been pinpointed as the main cause of COPD, a group of lung diseases, including chronic bronchitis and emphysema.
- More recent research suggests that occupational dust can be a contributing factor, and underground miners are among those impacted by this environment.
- “We do know that COPD does cause physical and mental suffering,” researcher Sherry Mongeau said