With any illness or flu, especially with the recent appearance of Swine Flu in the United States, employers should be open to the fact that their employees might become ill. What employers need to take into consideration are the concepts of "Absenteeism" and "Presenteeism." Absenteeism is when an employee doest not report to work usually due to an illness and their individual production grinds to a halt. "Presenteeism" occurs when an employee shows up for work sick and tries to function normally. Presenteeism usually results in lower individual worker output due to a tired and sick employee. Presenteeism also spreads germs to other employees resulting in sort of a chain reaction of workplace illness. Newly infected employees will contribute to the Abesenteeism and Presenteeism dynamic. The Center of Disease Control offers informative fact sheets about how to maintain a healthy workplace as well as updated information on the current Swine Flu.
Synthetic Marijuana, also known as "K-2" or "Spice" is a mixture of common herbs sprayed with synthetic chemicals that mirror the high of Marijuana. The synthetic product is sold as incense in head shops, tobacco stores and convenient stores. So far, twelve states have banned the sale of Synthetic Marijuana - (Kansas, Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, Missouri, Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas, Oregon, Illinois, Michigan, and Kentucky). The American Association of Poison Control Centers reported that within the past year there have been over 500 cases of negative reactions to the still legal yet dangerous drug. On the national level the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) recently designated certain chemicals that are present within Synthetic Marijuana to the same category that heroin and LSD are part of and further emphasizes the need to be able to test blood and urine for Synthetic Marijuana use. On the local level- The Herald Online reported that Fort Mill,...