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No-smoking proposal pits employers' health care costs against personal freedoms

18.05.12

"Their ultimate goal is to make their employees healthier, and there is a direct correlation between that and reducing health care costs," said Danny Cooner, president of Safety First, a division of Behavioral Health Systems, a company that helps employers enact wellness and smoke-free campaigns.

A surge in bans on the hiring of smokers has led 29 states to enact laws protecting smokers, but Texas is not among them.

Several large companies with such bans say they have worked well.

The 19,000-employee Baylor Health Care System's hiring policy took effect Jan. 1, and it has seen no decline in job applications, said Becky Hall, vice president of health and wellness. Less than 3 percent of job offers have been rescinded because urine tests suggested that the candidates used nicotine.

Fort Worth and numerous private companies have inquired about the policy, she said.

"We have been pleasantly surprised by the amount of outreach we've been getting from other businesses asking how we implemented this," Hall said.

Source: Bellingham Herald

As Protests Continue to Flare, Should Formula One Be Returning to Bahrain?

18.05.12

The eighty-one-year-old Formula One boss Bernie Ecclestone is normally just thought of as eccentric, but at the Chinese Grand Prix last week, he sounded completely out of touch with reality. Asked by a reporter if he thought Bahrain was politically stable enough to hold the F1 Bahrain Grand Prix on April 22, he was unequivocal in his response. “There’s nothing happening (in Bahrain),” he said. “I know people that live there and it’s all very quiet and peaceful.” Hours later, clashes broke out between protestors and security forces after the funeral for Ahmed Ismail, who was shot during a demonstration in March. Some of those in attendance threw firebombs at police and the authorities responded by firing tear gas and birdshot to clear the crowds. “No F1, no F1,” Ismail’s mother, Makyia Ahmed, told The Associated Press. “They killed my son in cold blood.”

After weeks of debate over whether the Bahrain Grand Prix should be canceled for a second straight year because of the ongoing political unrest in the country, the FIA—Formula One’s world governing body—announced on Friday that the race would go ahead as planned. The organization said FIA President Jean Todt had met with politicians, diplomats and the crown prince during a visit to Bahrain in November and was confident that enough security measures would be in place to ensure the safety of all the participants, as well as the fans. Adding his two cents, John Yates, Scotland Yard’s former top counter-terrorism official who is now advising the Bahraini government on police reform, said the country is predominantly peaceful and social media sites are presenting a “distorted picture” of the situation. “Along with my family, I feel completely safe. Indeed, safer than I have often felt in London,” he wrote in a letter to Todt.

Source: TIME (blog)