The saga of several dozen federal occupational health and safety researchers in Spokane has taken a new turn.
Last April, the Trump administration issued layoff notices to employees at the Spokane Research Division of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, NIOSH. Soon after, a federal judge issued an injunction, allowing the employees to keep their jobs. But, in many cases, they weren’t allowed to continue their work.
Last week, the government called the workers back, but many had already left Spokane for new opportunities, including Jerry Poplin.
"My main charge over the last 10 years was to develop the miner health program. We built some teams and a branch of teams and I played a pretty integral role in all that. So that's why I'm very much still in the mix of it still trying to communicate to our partners to make sure they know what's going on...I'm still trying to stand up for them as much as possible. They're part of me, I'm a part of them. It's kind of like the mafia. You can't ever get out."
We’ll also talk with WSU Spokane Nutrition and Exercise Physiology Professor Pablo Monsivais to get his take about the new nutritional guidelines issued by the Department of Health and Human Services.
"If you look at the graphic, the new inverted pyramid of the dietary guidelines, your eyes are really drawn to the fact that it's prominently displaying red meat, a lot of animal-based proteins, and full-fat and high-fat dairy products, which are major sources of saturated fat in our diets. That's a really remarkable change, given that the scientific base has been telling us over the last few decades that reducing saturated fat and replacing it with healthier fats is an important way to prevent heart disease."
