When Jim Morris told CJR about the Center for Public Integrity's labor and environment team in March, he extolled the virtues of putting both topics under one umbrella. "We're talking about things like toxic chemicals in the workplace," he said. "It's heavy on science...We're going to stick with workplace health and safety reporting, because it's incredibly important."

That philosophy, which led to a 2014 Pulitzer Prize for a series on coal miners' fight to claim health benefits, continued bearing fruit this week. On Monday, CPI began publishing findings of an 18-month investigation on work-related disease in America. The multi-part exposé, complete with methodology, catalogues the toxic substances that many Americans come into contact with in the workplace -- and the weak federal regulations that fail to police them. Workers from construction sites to grocery stores to semiconductor manufacturing plants often touch or inhale chemicals that hold the potential, advocates say, to irreparably damage or end lives.

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