Drug Safety in the Workplace

Should a company be permitted to fire a worker for taking a drug that is legally prescribed by a physician to treat a medical condition? That’s what happened to a worker on an auto-parts assembly line who was taking hydrocodone for back pain, according to an article in The New York Times.

You might say, “That’s not fair!”, but it’s not that simple. After all, companies have a responsibility to maintain a safe work environment. Companies can be held responsible for accidents on the job and for product defects caused by impaired workers. And in “safety-sensitive” jobs, such as airline pilot, the public has a right to expect that the employee is not impaired.

The question becomes, then, how does society achieve the right balance between the rights of workers and the responsibilities of employers? At present we know very little about just how safe various prescription drugs are in the workplace, because testing for workplace safety is not part of the normal approval process for pharmaceutical drugs.

More and more companies are requiring drug tests of their employees. Employees who test positive are sometimes fired, in part because companies aren’t sure whether or not the drug creates a safety issue and just aren’t willing to take the risk. It’s a societal problem that needs to be addressed by valid scientific research into drug safety in the workplace.