March 11, 2002—The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) announced on March 5, 2002, that it is extending the period for comments on the tuberculosis (TB) rulemaking record until May 24, 2002. OSHA reopened the TB record on January 24, 2002, for 60 days to give interested persons the opportunity to review and comment on the agency’s final risk assessment and the Institute of Medicine’s (IOM) report “Tuberculosis in the Workplace.” Also included in the record was an evaluation of the agency’s draft risk assessment conducted by two experts in the fields of TB epidemiology and risk assessment.
Since the reopening, the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology, the American Health Care Association, and the American Society for Microbiology, requested a 60-day extension of the deadline for submitting comments. The entire TB rulemaking record, including the peer reviewers’ reports, OSHA’s draft final risk assessment, and the IOM report, is available for review and copying at OSHA’s Docket Office: 202/693-2350.
For more information on submitting comments on the TB rulemaking record, see the previous FMLink article entitled “OSHA reopens TB rulemaking record for review.”
