TITLE: Another Boeing whistleblower says he faced retaliation for reporting 'shortcuts'
https://www.npr.org/2024/04/12/1244147895/boeing-whistleblower-retaliation-shortcuts-787-dreamliner
EXCERPTS: In a virtual meeting with reporters, [longtime Boeing engineer Sam] Salehpour said Boeing was so eager to meet its production goals that it took "shortcuts" when it fastened together the carbon-composite fuselage of the 787. That could dramatically shorten the life of the plane, he warned, potentially causing it to break apart in mid-flight.
Salehpour joins a growing list of current and former Boeing employees who say the company has ignored their concerns — and then retaliated against them when they spoke up. The company denies that, but aviation experts say Boeing needs to do a better job of listening to its employees.
In its statement about the latest allegations, Boeing said all employees are encouraged "to speak up when issues arise. Retaliation is strictly prohibited at Boeing."
But independent experts charged with evaluating the company's safety practices say that's not how many Boeing employees see it.
"You cannot have a safety culture where the people that are doing the work don't believe what they're hearing," said Javier de Luis, a lecturer in the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
De Luis's sister Graziella died in the crash of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 in 2019. De Luis served on an expert panel convened by the Federal Aviation Administration after the crash of that Boeing 737 Max 8 jet, and another one the year before, that killed 346 people in total.
De Luis says the panel found a "disconnect" between Boeing's management and the factory floor.
"It's one thing to hear, 'yes, speak up if you see anything wrong.' And then you go and talk to the folks that are doing the work. And they say, 'yeah, but my buddy spoke up and next thing he knew, he was being transferred out, or being given write ups for minor things,'" de Luis said.
Former Boeing mechanic Davin Fischer says he spoke up — and paid a steep price for it.
Fischer worked for Boeing as a mechanic at the factory in Renton, Wash. where the company builds the 737 Max. He says Boeing's leaders were constantly pushing to speed up production.
"Hey, we need to go faster, faster, faster," Fischer said. "They cared more about shareholders and investors than they did planes, their employees, anything."
When Fischer finally pushed back, he says he was demoted in retaliation, and then fired from the company in 2019. Fischer says many of his friends who still work at Boeing are afraid to speak out.
"People there are scared, a hundred percent," he said. "Because they don't want to get fired."
There's also the example of John Barnett, a longtime quality manager who blew the whistle on Boeing in 2019, alleging that the company was covering up serious defects with the 787 Dreamliner.
"I'm not gonna lie, it's been rough on me. It's been rough on my family. I'm still dealing with issues. I'm still having anxiety attacks, PTSD," Barnett said in a 2019 interview with Ralph Nader. (Nader's grandniece, Samya Stumo, was killed in the crash of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302).
Barnett said his managers at Boeing retaliated against him by docking his pay and creating a hostile environment, eventually forcing him into early retirement.
"It's taken a serious mental and emotional toll on me. But you know, I want to try very hard to keep the focus on the safety of the airplane. That's what my story is about," Barnett said. "It keeps me up at night. I can't sleep. It's taken a heck of a toll on me."
Barnett filed a complaint against Boeing for wrongful termination. On the third day of depositions in that case last month, Barnett was found dead in his truck of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound, according to police in South Carolina.
The latest Boeing whistleblower, engineer Sam Salehpour, alleges that he faced retaliation as well. His lawyer, Debra Katz, says Salehpour brought his concerns to managers repeatedly.
"Initially, he was just told to shut up. Then he was told he was a problem. Then he was excluded from meetings," Katz said. "He was barred from speaking to structural engineers. He was barred from speaking to mathematicians and others to help him understand the data. And at one point, his boss threatened him with physical violence."
Katz says Salehpour reported the threat to human resources. That's when Boeing moved him from the 787 to a different plane. Still, Salehpour insists he's not angry.
"Despite the treatment and retaliation I have experienced in the company, I'm not bitter," Salehpour told reporters this week. "Boeing has to realize that implementing a real safety culture moving forward also means accounting for, admitting the mistakes and correcting the mistakes that have been made over 20 years."
TITLE: Ford is under investigation for Bronco Sport gas leaks. US says its remedy doesn’t fix the problem
https://apnews.com/article/investigation-ford-recall-gasoline-leak-bronco-sport-escape-da330635bdaa1663d9b8e4d689be4284
EXCERPT: The U.S. government’s auto safety agency has opened an investigation into a Ford recall for gasoline leaks from cracked fuel injectors that can cause engine fires, saying in documents that the remedy doesn’t fix the leaks.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said in documents posted Friday that the probe will “evaluate the adequacy and safety consequences of the remedy” that Ford specifies in the recall.
The agency moved with unusual speed, posting documents detailing the “recall query” just two days after the recall was made public.
The recall covers nearly 43,000 Ford Bronco Sport SUVs from the 2022 and 2023 model years, and Escape SUVs from 2022. All have 1.5-liter engines.
NHTSA said that fuel injectors can crack, causing gasoline or vapors to leak at a high rate onto hot surfaces in the engine compartment.
The Associated Press reported Wednesday that Ford’s remedy for the leaks is to add a drain tube to send the gas away from hot surfaces, and a software update to detect a pressure drop in the fuel injection system. If that happens, the software will disable the high pressure fuel pump, reduce engine power and cut temperatures in the engine compartment. Owners also will get a “seek service” message.
But the U.S. said Friday that Ford’s fix lets fuel drain from a cylinder head hole to the ground below the vehicles. “The recall remedy does not include replacement of the cracked fuel injector,” the agency said.
Ford said Friday it is working with NHTSA on the investigation.
TITLE: Why is there so much lead in American food?
https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/24115827/lead-poisoning-symptoms-exposure-children-cinnamon-paint-battery-pollution-global
EXCERPT: A recent analysis from the environmental group Pure Earth examined more than 5,000 samples of consumer products in 25 low- and middle-income countries, ranging from foods and spices to cosmetics and toys to cookware and paints. It found that 18 percent of all samples had dangerous amounts of lead, based on reference levels drawn from public health agency guidelines. About half of all of the ceramic and metallic foodware and 41 percent of the residential and commercial paints tested had excess amounts of lead.
The US food supply relies on imports from countries with high levels of lead exposure, according to a 2019 report from the same group. The United States imports nearly all of its spices, coffee, and cocoa, for example. Independent tests conducted from 2014 to 2018 found most of the chocolate products tested — 96 out of 127 — had amounts of lead and cadmium (another dangerous neurotoxin) higher than the levels allowed in California, according to the Pure Earth report.
The US also imports about half of all fruits and vegetables consumed here. Farmers in lower-income countries must sometimes rely on untreated industrial wastewater to irrigate their crops, which can then contaminate the produce that is shipped around the world.
Once lead finds its way inside a person’s body, it quickly enters the bones because of its molecular similarities to calcium. It then subsists for decades, moving around and finding easy access to important organs, including the brain. And as lead takes up residence in places where calcium is supposed to be, it disrupts important biological and neurological functions.
“Lead is a toxin like no other,” Luby said. “People think about ‘Oh, yeah. Lead’s bad. Mercury’s bad. Cadmium’s bad. Air pollution is bad. All these things.’ No — lead is really disproportionately bad.”
One global estimate of lead’s impact concluded that exposure had contributed to 5.5 million adult cardiovascular deaths and $6 trillion in lost economic potential in 2019. “But we don’t see lead. We don’t think about it,” Luby said. “When Dad dies of a heart attack, we don’t blame it on lead.”
We’re all at risk from lead — but not at equal risk. Children in low- and middle-income countries have average blood lead levels roughly three times higher than those in high-income countries, based on the available national data. While one in three children worldwide have dangerously high amounts of lead in their blood, the share is closer to one in every two children in the developing world.
Lead-battery manufacturing and recycling in lower-income countries where plants are subject to less regulation can lead to local pollution. There are fewer restrictions on lead in paint and other everyday products (food included) in the developing world. And, as mentioned, exposure also comes through agricultural practices. In the US, besides food imports, deterioration of aging civil infrastructure contributes to exposure, as was the case with lead-leaching water pipes in Flint, Michigan. Lead ammunition, commonplace in the US, has also been linked to elevated lead levels in children’s blood.
Lead’s persistence, unfortunately, is multifaceted. Drew McCartor, executive director of Pure Earth, put the sources into three buckets.
First, some polluters actively disregard the rules around lead use and its known health effects and intentionally continue to use lead in their products. Spices are a good example of how this can happen: Lead chromate pigment is often used to produce a more vibrant color in spices such as cinnamon and turmeric.
Forsyth, in her work with Luby to address lead exposure linked to turmeric among rural mothers in Bangladesh, noted that the use of lead chromate is “economically motivated.” It adds the yellow color desirable in traditional turmeric. It is also denser than the spice itself and reduces the amount of time it takes to process the turmeric’s roots, which increases the producer’s yield. The FDA has said it is investigating whether the presence of lead found in the cinnamon-flavored applesauce pouches was the result of such practices.
Companies have proven adept at migrating their operations to less restrictive jurisdictions. That’s a particular problem for lead-acid batteries, which are most commonly used for automobiles and represent about 85 percent of lead’s use in the modern global economy. Most lead batteries are recycled to make new ones, but lead recycling has been linked again and again to the contamination of nearby soil and water.
The US sends most of its used car batteries to Mexico to be recycled, and the towns there that are home to recycling plants have been found to have extremely high lead levels. “You look at the history of battery recycling in the US, which is basically closed down and overwhelmingly moved to places where there’s weaker environmental regulation,” Forsyth said. “We in the wealthy world are like, ‘Oh, yeah, I want cheap batteries.’ And the fact that it’s killing people nearby in another country is a connection we don’t make.”