Safe Science Promoting a Culture of Safety in Academic Chemical Research (2014) / Chapter Skim
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1 Introduction
1 Introduction
Pages 9-20
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From page 9... ...
. MOTIVATION AND BACKGROUND Serious and sometimes fatal accidents in chemistry research laboratories at universities have driven government agencies and professional societies to engage in renewed efforts to examine safety in university labs.
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From page 10... ...
The resulting findings and conclusions will be disseminated broadly to key ac tors in non-industrial laboratory safety. even when carried out by researchers with extensive training and prudent behavior, standard safety precautions can fail, as tragically exemplified by the 1997 death of Karen Wetterhahn, a respected chemistry professor from Dartmouth College.
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From page 11... ...
Following Wetterhahn's death, permeation testing of disposable latex gloves revealed that dimethylmercury permeates latex, PVC, and neoprene almost immediately upon contact.4 Acknowledging the great risk associated with handling dimethylmercury as well as its lethal properties, OSHA amended its safety guidelines for the compound, discouraging its further use, unless absolutely necessary. In OSHA's memorandum issued after Wetterhahn's death, the agency noted the critical need for research laboratories to produce a "protective chemical hygiene plan, which includes adequate guidance on the appropriate selection of personal protective equipment and engineering controls."5 The memorandum stressed that even "highly placed or very well qualified researchers" do not always possess the most accurate or adequate health and safety information.
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From page 12... ...
working in the lab of Professor Patrick Harran, was attempting to transfer a tert-butyllithium solution in hexanes from a reagent bottle to a reaction flask when the plunger of the syringe she was using separated from the barrel, spraying her hands with the pyrophoric compound. Both the tert-butyllithium and the hexane ignited, also igniting some additional hexane that had spilled in the commotion and, in the absence of a lab coat, Sangji's highly flammable synthetic sweater caught fire.
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From page 13... ...
An incident is recordable if it involves a significant injury or illness diagnosed by a physician or other licensed health care professional, even if it does not result in death, days away from work, restricted work or job transfer, medical treatment beyond first aid, or loss of consciousness (Occupational Safety & Health Administration [OSHA]
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From page 14... ...
The CSB identified three major flaws in the safety practices at Texas Tech. The first shortcoming, most directly related to the specifics of the accident, was a lack of training and documentation of the physical hazards (e.g., risk of explosion)
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From page 15... ...
Both the Cal/OSHA report on the UCLA incident and the CSB report on the Texas Tech incident point to a deficient safety culture as a primary cause. The three themes from the CSB report are also addressed in the plea agreement between the UC Regents and the State of California.
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From page 16... ...
The criminal charges against Professor Harran have sparked intense debate about who bears the ultimate responsibility for laboratory safety. The CSB report on the Texas Tech incident has generated interest not only because it is the first CSB investigation of an academic laboratory or institution, but also because it recommends that funding agencies use safety record as one qualifier for awarding funding.
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From page 17... ...
The ACS report focuses on and emphasizes the importance of safety education in undergraduate teaching laboratories. The authors of the report expect that strong safety education during undergraduate studies will translate to graduate students, who form the bulk of the research personnel in academia, with stronger safety ethics and will lead to stronger safety culture in academic labs.
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From page 18... ...
The report asserts that, "The industrial or government laboratory environment provides strong corporate structure and discipline for maintaining a well-organized safety program where the culture of safety is thoroughly understood, respected, and enforced from the highest level of management down."24 In contrast to institutional practices that support a safety culture in industry, academic research laboratories often are embedded in institutions in which safety is rarely discussed outside of targeted training sessions to satisfy regulatory requirements. The turnover in research workers is high; the range of materials and procedures performed by these workers varies considerably across any given institution; and aside from the aforementioned, limited training, many research workers in academic laboratories may have primarily received their safety training from laboratory coursework in chemistry.
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From page 19... ...
This final chapter examines the interdependencies that characterize the structure of safety overall, in the context of the current hierarchy of actors involved. After identifying the strengths and weaknesses of the actors, the chapter identifies systems that may be established to raise the overall safety performance of academic research labs.
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