Employer fetal protection policies at work: Balancing reproductive hazards with Title VII rights
Perhaps one of the most compelling divisive workplace issues of the decade surrounds the use of increasingly complex chemicals in work environments which raises legal, economic, medical and moral concerns, especially as employers adopt employment policies meant to avoid the specter of massive tort liability for workplace exposure injuries to workers or third parties. In the case, /International Union v. Johnson Controls, the Supreme Court struck down an employer's policy prohibiting fertile women from work involving exposure to the well-known teratogen, lead, where the employer could not produce a defense to this facially discriminatory policy. The authors analyze the Court's opinion and concurrences, and note the important tensions still needed resolution after the case: namely the public policy mandate to protect all populations from workplace toxins; to eradicate toxins from the workplace; and to promote worker and safety health of both men and women.
Human and laboratory animal test systems available for detection of reproductive failure.
Abstract The human reproductive system in both males and females is highly sensitive to a variety of occupational and environmental hazards. Damage can occur in many target tissues in the fetus and adult, leading to reproductive failure. A more comprehensive awareness of such potential damage is essential to reduce the relatively high rates of reproductive failure in the human population. In this article, human and laboratory animal test systems available for the study of reproductive failure are discussed. Endpoints measured in these systems include adult infertility, spontaneous abortion, growth retardation, stillbirths, birth defects, and functional disease states in the offspring, such as cancer, mental retardation, and sterility. Validation of laboratory animal test systems with known human teratogens is urged. Routine surveillance of the human population via recording of the incidence of spontaneous abortion along with cytogenetic analysis is recommended, as well as semen analysis of occupationally-exposed males. The need for more extensive study of the association between paternal exposure and reproductive outcome is emphasized. Test schemes for the early detection of reproductive failure in the human population and for the identification of agents capable of causing this effect are proposed.
Police and Political Violence in the 1960s and 1970s: Germany and Italy in a Comparative Perspective
Notwithstanding the significant differences between the German and Italian police models (federal and civil vs. centralised and militarised), in both countries the confrontation with the protest movements of the 1960s and 1970s had a profound impact on police conceptions and public order strategies. Police forces in some German federal states (West Berlin) followed a hard line until the late 1960s, while in others (Munich, Hamburg) reforms to the Weimar-centred police intervention tactics took place beginning in the early to mid-1960s. In Italy, traditional police conceptions and strategies remained largely unchanged and re-emerged in 1968. Here, a movement from within the police led to the demilitarisation and unionisation of the state police in 1981. In both countries, fighting left-wing terrorism in the 1970s stimulated technical modernisation and enhanced the centralisation of the police. In critical response to police tactics, in the late 1970s Germany police matters were increasingly perceived as a concern not only of the state but of civil society—even if policing remained a highly contested terrain. In Italy, such matters largely remained state concerns in which only politicians and internal security specialists were entitled to intervene.