Proposed ACS undergrad guidelines increase safety requirements
This week’s issue of C&EN includes a story by Celia Arnaud about proposed changes to the ACS Guidelines for Bachelor’s Degree Programs, which are developed by the Committee on Professional Training. The issue also has a comment by committee leaders Anne B. McCoy of Ohio State University and Ron W. Darbeau of Louisiana’s McNeese State University.
Included in the changes are revisions to the safety requirements. Former committee leaders told me a few years ago that the last guidelines revision, completed in 2008, had more explicitly addressed safety than earlier versions, so the newly-proposed revisions take the criteria a step further.
Here’s what the requirements say now in the safety section:
7.3 Laboratory Safety Skills.
Approved programs should promote a safety-conscious culture in which students understand the concepts of safe laboratory practices and how to apply them. Programs should train students in the aspects of modern chemical safety appropriate to their educational level and scientific needs. A high degree of safety awareness should begin during the first laboratory course, and both classroom and laboratory discussions must stress safe practices. Students should understand responsible disposal techniques, understand and comply with safety regulations, understand and use material safety data sheets (MSDS), recognize and minimize potential chemical and physical hazards in the laboratory, and know how to handle laboratory emergencies effectively.
And here’s what’s proposed (overall, there’s a shift from “shoulds” to “musts”):
Section 7.3 Laboratory Safety Skills (p. 14-15)
Programs must train students in the aspects of modern chemical safety appropriate to their educational level and scientific needs. Approved programs must promote a safety-conscious culture in which students understand the concepts of safe laboratory practices and apply them.
- Programs must train students in the aspects of modern chemical safety appropriate to their educational and scientific needs.
- The promotion of safety awareness and skills must begin during the first laboratory experience and be incorporated into each lab experience thereafter. Classroom and laboratory discussions must stress safe practices. Students should be actively engaged in the evaluation and assessment of safety risks associated with laboratory experiences.
- Safety understanding and skills should build throughout the curriculum and be assessed.
- Students should
- understand responsible disposal techniques
- understand and comply with safety regulations
- understand and use material safety data sheets (MSDS)
- recognize and minimize potential chemical and physical hazards in the laboratory and know how to effectively handle laboratory emergencies.
- Students must undergo general safety training as well as lab-specific training before beginning undergraduate research.
- Approved programs must have an active, departmental safety committee.
What say you, readers? Are the proposed changes necessary or sufficient? What would you add or subtract?
From McCoy and Darbeau’s piece this week: “Please send comments to cpt@acs.org
by Aug. 1 so they can be discussed at the next CPT meeting. The committee will also hold an extended open meeting on Sept. 8 at the ACS national meeting in Indianapolis that will focus on the guidelines revision. Details will be posted on the CPT website. CPT plans to publish the new guidelines in 2014.”
Friday chemical safety round up
Chemical health and safety news from the past few weeks, starting with a couple of cases we’ve been following:
- (Former?) Janssen chemist Ramineh Behbehanian will not face charges for planting tainted juice at a California Starbucks, because analysis showed only vinegar. Authorities originally thought she’d adulterated the juice with rubbing alcohol.
- The family of San Francisco Veterans Affairs researcher Richard Din, who died in 2012 from a lab-contracted illness, has filed a wrongful death suit
And a tweet of the week, from C&EN’s Carmen Drahl at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, quoting Eli Lilly’s Brian Fahie:
Safety culture is one of the red lines that can lead to your dismissal very quickly- Fahie #CBIcareer #chemsafety
— Carmen Drahl (@carmendrahl) June 6, 2013
Other news:
- Chemjobber interviewed the Chemical Safety Board’s Mary Beth Mulcahy and posted about an Org. Process Res. Dev. paper on runaway reactions
- Chembark found a video of a Major methane demo fail and started a collection of lab manuals
- At in the Pipeline, Derek won’t work with dimethylcadmium:
I’m saddened to report that the chemical literature contains descriptions of dimethylcadmium’s smell. Whoever provided these reports was surely exposed to far more of the vapor than common sense would allow, because common sense would tell you to stay about a half mile upwind at all times. At any rate, its odor is variously described as “foul”, “unpleasant”, “metallic”, “disagreeable”, and (wait for it) “characteristic”, which is an adjective that shows up often in the literature with regard to smells, and almost always makes a person want to punch whoever thought it was useful. We can assume that dimethylcadmium is not easily confused with beaujolais in the blindfolded sniff test, but not much more. So if you’re working with organocadmium derivatives and smell something nasty, but nasty in a new, exciting way that you’ve never quite smelled before, then you can probably assume the worst.
- Allegheny College worked with local emergency responders on a chemical explosion drill
- In the June issue of the Process Safety Beacon, Why can’t I open that valve? (Hint: There might be a good reason why you can’t.)
- On June 25, BioRaft and the Laboratory Safety Institute are hosting a free webinar on How to create a more effective lab safety program
- From the National Academy of Sciences, new Acute exposure guideline levels for selected airborne chemicals
- In Room for Debate at the New York Times: Where OSHA falls short, and why
- Also in the NYT, Where do old cellphones go to die?
- And go check out Poisoned Places: Toxic Air, Neglected Communities, a joint project by NPR and the Center for Public Integrity
- From the Associated Press, Presence of explosive chemicals often kept secret: “Secrecy and shoddy record-keeping have kept the public and emergency workers in the dark about stockpiles of explosive material.”
- Texas prohibits nearly 70 percent of its counties from having a fire code, reports the Dallas Morning News, and “85 percent of the code-prohibited counties have no full-time professional fire department anywhere in the county”
- This takes some serious job dedication: For veteran LAPD diver, tar hunt far worse than sea hunt
- And thankfully no one got hurt going through this: Collector’s bombs, shells, grenades confiscated
- Coming soon to a computer near you: Chemical spillage simulation: “Double check your hazard suit, because you’re part of the Special Chemical Disaster Prevention unit, handling some of the most dangerous materials in the world that are both toxic and very deadly! You’ll need to seek out these materials using a selection of different tools to combat the spills before they cause any harm to any civilians.” Yes, really, it’s a computer game. Costs about $40 USD.
Fires and explosions:
- An explosion and fire at a Teva plant in Israel, possibly from a reactor malfunction, killed one worker and injured 30 more. A year ago, an explosion and fire at Teva subsidiary Pliva in Croatia also killed one worker and injured eight others.
- A flash fire at an Amgen facility in California seriously burned a hazardous waste contractor
- An explosion at an Airgas plant in West Virginia burned two workers, “fifty cylinders of acetylene were believed to be the source of the explosion”
- A hexachlorodislane leak and a spark led to an explosion and fire at Nova-Kem in Illiniois and the evacuation of the town of Seward. One worker was injured. Chlorine tanks at the facility “ended up spilling their load after a safety mechanism sensed the heat from the fire in another part of the building. That release of the chlorine is what prevented a more massive explosion.
- A fire in an alcohol storage tank at California’s O’Neil Vintners and Distillery prompted the evacuation of a neighboring school (the story doesn’t say whether the alcohol was straight alcohol or a beverage of some sort)
- “Phosphorous solid” was the source of a fire in a U.K. high school
Leaks, spills, and other exposures:
- The side of railroad tracks is not where you want to do chemistry: A train derailed in Baltimore, spilling sodium chlorate from one care and terephthalic acid from another, which reacted with each other
- Two workers at a nuclear facility in Australia were exposed to sodium cyanide when “a container holding the chemical spilled on the workers’ legs.” The facility spokesman’s reported assertion that “They’re fine. They’ve been decontaminated. There’s no injuries.” seems a little optimistic, but I don’t know the quantity of the spill, what the workers were wearing, or how quickly NaCN absorbs through skin.
- Boron trifluoride leaked at an Applied Materials/Varian Semiconductor complex in Massachusetts
- One worker was exposed to diborane at a Ford Motor plant in Kentucky
- Quaker Chemical in South Carolina released hydrofluoric acid
- “Mild to medium-strength acids” spilled when a vial overpressurized and exploded in a University of New Orleans chemistry lab
Not covered (usually): meth labs; ammonia leaks; incidents involving floor sealants, cleaning solutions, or pool chemicals; transportation spills; things that happen at recycling centers (dispose of your waste properly, people!); and fires from oil, natural gas, or other fuels.
Lab safety video library
Several weeks ago, a request hit my inbox: Did I know of a library of lab safety videos? I didn’t. But it seemed like one would be a useful resource, so Russ and I set about putting one together. It’s just a spreadsheet, but hopefully it’ll be useful to some in the chemistry community:
A few notes:
- Video descriptions are courtesy of Russ (thanks, Russ!)
- We make no guarantees about quality
- There are undoubtedly videos that we missed. If you know of one we should include, feel free to post it in the comments or e-mail me
- Likewise, if you or someone you know produces a new video, let us know to add it!
The spreadsheet is freely available to anyone who would like to use it, for whatever purpose. That includes making a prettier, more accessible version. Legendary chemistry librarian Dana Roth of Caltech, for example, has started a Safety Videos “LibGuide.”
I know, the Safety Zone has been very quiet of late. I was busy working on a cover story about the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, plus a companion piece on oil dispersants. We’ll resume regular programming with a round up tomorrow.
Dow launches Lab Safety Academy website
Yesterday at the Council for Chemical Research meeting, Dow unveiled a publicly-accessible website with a comprehensive set of lab safety training videos plus additional resources. The website is at safety.dow.com. More details on the development of the site are in my C&EN story on the project. One tidbit that didn’t make it into the news story: While the video hosts are professional actors, the supporting roles are played by Dow scientists.
Patrick Harran arraigned on four felony counts, #SheriSangji case to be continued in June
University of California, Los Angeles, chemistry professor Patrick Harran was arraigned today on four felony charges of violating the state labor code. A Los Angeles County judge entered a not guilty plea on Harran’s behalf for all four counts. The charges stem from the death of research assistant Sheharbano (Sheri) Sangji from injuries sustained in a 2008 fire in the professor’s lab
Another judge ruled last month that Harran should face trial on three charges, each citing a violation of a separate state safety regulation: failure to correct unsafe workplace conditions and procedures in a timely manner, failure to require work-appropriate clothing and personal protective equipment, and failure to provide chemical safety training to employees. The Los Angeles County District Attorneys added a fourth charge that essentially expanded on the clothing and protective equipment charge.
The new charge is for violating occupational safety regulation 3383(a), which states “body protection may be required for employees whose work exposes parts of their body, not otherwise protected as required by other orders in this article, to hazardous or flying substances or objects.” The original charge cited part (b) of that regulation: “Clothing appropriate for the work being done shall be worn. Loose sleeves, tails, ties, lapels, cuffs, or other loose clothing which can be entangled in moving machinery shall not be worn.”
At the arraignment today, Harran’s attorney, Thomas P. O’Brien, said Harran would not enter a plea because the defense team planned to file a demurrer motion to dismiss the charges. Deputy District Attorney Craig W. Hum argued that the defense could file the motion after the plea. The judge then entered the not guilty plea for Harran.
The case was assigned to a new courtroom and the next court date was set for June 27. The June 27 appearance will be a status update to see how ready both sides are for a trial.
On the importance of teaching safety
From this week’s issue of C&EN, a letter to the editor from Dow’s William F. Banholzer, Corning’s Gary S. Calabrese, and DuPont’s Pat Confalone discusses whether laboratory safety should have been included in “Advancing Graduate Education in the Chemical Sciences“:
As members of the ACS Presidential Commission on Graduate Education in the Chemical Sciences, we challenge Richard N. Zare’s comment on the inappropriateness of including a recommendation about laboratory safety in our report “Advancing Graduate Education in the Chemical Sciences” (C&EN, March 4, page 51). While admitting that safety is important, Zare states the report “should instead have been about preparing graduate students, about the future.”
What is more important in graduate education than ensuring students complete their research as safe and healthy as the day they entered graduate school? A graduate education is the ideal place to instill the mind-set that if you can’t do research while carrying out the best safety practices, then you shouldn’t do it at all. The recommendation to include safety in the final report was unanimously supported by all commission members. …
The facts are unequivocal. Occupational Safety & Health Administration statistics demonstrate that researchers are 11 times more likely to get hurt in an academic lab than in an industrial lab. There have been serious accidents in academic labs in recent years—including fatalities—that could have been prevented with the proper use of protective equipment and safer laboratory procedures.
Most chemistry and chemical engineering graduate students will find employment in industry. As new hires come on board, many companies spend weeks on remedial safety training before new hires are allowed to work in their labs. This clearly shows that the current state of graduate safety education is lacking and that there is a clear need to address it. If the report is supposed to focus on “preparing graduate students, about the future,” how can this not be a relevant topic? …
The “11 times more likely” statistic is inaccurately framed. I followed up on it with the letter authors and Lori Seiler, Dow’s associate director for environmental health and safety in research and development. The numbers actually compare the overall injury and illness rate for academic institutions (including those that might occur, for example, in grounds keeping or a dining hall as well as in laboratories) to Dow’s overall rate. Seiler adds that the injury and illness rate for Dow’s research laboratories is consistent with the company’s overall rate, when calculated per employee.
That said, it seems like it would be wise for the academic community to take this letter to heart. Banholzer, Calabrese, and Confalone are not writing in a vacuum—they see the skills that chemistry graduates lack, and those skills are necessary whether those graduates are going on to work in industry, academia, or elsewhere.
On a related note, yours truly will be heading to Virginia next week for the Council for Chemical Research annual meeting on May 19-21. On the afternoon of Sunday, May 19, I’ll be moderating a panel discussion on the pilot laboratory safety program that Dow began last year with the University of Minnesota, Pennsylvania State University, and the University of California, Santa Barbara.
Friday chemical safety round up
Chemical health and safety news from the past couple of weeks.
First up, on the West Fertilizer explosion in Texas:
- The Chemical Safety Board launched a Facebook page for its investigation into the West Fertilizer explosion
- Sustained Outrage posted about various familiar issues surrounding the disaster
- At a Texas House committee hearing, many agencies
many agenciessaid “not my job” regarding lack of oversight and allowing large quantities of ammonium nitrate to be stored near a residential area - And the Center for Public Integrity reported on concerns about the pace of CSB investigations
Also:
- In honor of Workers’ Memorial Day, the National Council for Occupational Safety & Health released “Preventable Deaths: The Tragedy of Workplace Fatalities” and the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention devoted its Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report to worker concerns.
- The Bureau of Labor Statistics released its final count of fatal work injuries in 2011: 4,693, “the third lowest annual total since the fatal injury census was first conducted in 1992.” That’s 3.5 fatal injuries per 100,000 full-time equivalent workers.
- The Berkeley Science Review published a long article on the lab safety changes in the University of California system in the wake of Sheri Sangji’s death
- The May issue of the Process Safety Beacon looks at “Pressure relief valve bonnets–to plug or not to plug?“
- A Florida high school student experimented with combinging aluminum foil and toilet bowl cleaner in a water bottle on campus before school. She subsequently was expelled from school and charged with possessing and discharging weapons and a destructive device on school grounds. Yes, gas pressure built up in the bottle so it exploded, but really, it seems ridiculous to expel a student for this. From all reports, she was just curious and didn’t intend to harm anyone.
- Janssen chemist Ramineh Behbehanian, on the other hand, perhaps did want to harm people by putting rubbing alcohol-contaminated orange juice onto the shelves of a San Jose, Calif., Starbucks. An alert customer saw her do it.
- Norway orders BP safety review after leak
- The Las Vegas Sun looked back at a 1988 explosion at ammonium perchlorate manufacturer Pacific Engineering Production Co. of Nevada that killed two people and injured more than 300 (C&EN archive story here, paywall-free link!
coming), and explored what hazardous materials plants are in the area today - And WSYR in New York looked back at a fire from a flame test demonstration that left a teacher and three students badly burned
- U.K. authorities fined SAFC Hitech $190,000 for a 2012 incident in which trimethylindium caught fire and badly burned one worker
Fires and explosions:
- Three workers were killed in an explosion in a fireworks factory in India
- Also in India, and explosion and fire from some sort of chemical transfer at Ganesh Plasto injured one
- A fire at a Formosa Plastics plant in Texas involved ethylene and injured at least nine people (another story says a dozen)
Leaks, spills, and other exposures:
- One worker died and six others were treated for exposure after breathing hydrogen sulfide fumes while cleaning pipes at a wastewater treatment plant at the Port of Tampa, in Florida
- Something “in the ‘cyanide’ family” spilled at metal finisher Kocour in Illinois, sending one person for medical treatment
- Phenol spilled at a medical clinic in Iowa, sending 13 people to two local hospitals, and also at a U.K. high school
- Hydrogen peroxide leaked from equipment at the College of Nanoscale Science & Engineering in New York
- Chemicals stored by a deceased fireworks enthusiast in a residential shed led to the evacuation of 49 neighboring houses while the bomb squad investigated
Not covered (usually): meth labs; ammonia leaks; incidents involving floor sealants, cleaning solutions, or pool chemicals; transportation spills; things that happen at recycling centers (dispose of your waste properly, people!); and fires from oil, natural gas, or other fuels.
Hearing scheduled for David Snyder in UC Davis explosives case
Former University of California, Davis, chemist David Snyder had a second prehearing conference today regarding charges of possessing and intending to make explosives on campus. The judge scheduled Snyder’s preliminary hearing to start on July 26, says Michael Cabral, assistant chief deputy district attorney in the Yolo County District Attorney’s Office.
As part of the case, the prosecution wants to review Snyder’s medical records, a move that Snyder opposes. The judge scheduled a hearing on that matter for May 30.
Ripped from the pages: More on the West Fertilizer explosion in Texas
Texas explosion facts emerge, report Glenn Hess and Jeff Johnson in C&EN this week, although much remains unknown:
According to state and federal records, the retail facility stored some 270 tons of ammonium nitrate and 54,000 lb of anhydrous ammonia for sale to local farmers. …
The facility appeared not to segregate ammonium nitrate, nor did it have automatic sprinkler systems, structural fire barricades, or other mechanisms to limit fires. Whether first responders were aware of what was in the warehouse and its potential for explosion is unknown. …
Ammonium nitrate storage and use are controlled by state and federal regulations. However, it appears that West Fertilizer’s reports to regulators held conflicting information about what materials and quantities were stored, so this small retail distribution facility may not have triggered regulators’ notice. …
Meanwhile, C&EN Deputy Editor-in-Chief Josh Fischman writes in an editorial about a 1947 ammonium nitrate explosion in Texas that killed nearly 600 people, including 27 firefighters, and destroyed 500 homes:
On Oct. 20, 1947, C&EN reported that an expert at the President’s Conference on Fire Prevention said the disaster could have been prevented if “reasonable safety rules had been observed.”
Apparently that hasn’t happened.
There’s also been a West-related dust-up in California. Earlier this year, Texas Governor Rick Perry launched an ad campaign in California and visited the state to try to woo businesses “with promises of low taxes, loose regulations and a hard stance on organized labor,” reported the Los Angeles Times in February. Sacramento Bee cartoonist Jack Ohman subsequently responded to the West Fertilizer explosion with this cartoon. Perry responded that the cartoon inappropriately “mock[ed] the tragic deaths of my fellow Texans and our fellow Americans.” What say you, Safety Zone readers? Was the cartoon appropriately provoking or insensitive?
Patrick Harran ordered to stand trial in #SheriSangji case
C&EN’s Michael Torrice reported earlier today:
Chemistry professor Patrick G. Harran will face trial on three felony counts of violating California state labor code, a Los Angeles County judge ruled today. The case stems from a 2008 fire in Harran’s lab [at the University of California, Los Angeles,] that led to the death of research assistant Sheharbano (Sheri) Sangji.
See yesterday’s post for background.
Other coverage (will update as I see more):
- Los Angeles Times (reporter in courtroom)
- Westwood-Century City Patch (reporter in courtroom)
- Can’t quite tell if this reporter was in the courtroom: Reuters
- Media outlets working from secondary information: Associated Press shorter & longer; LA Weekly; Chronicle of Higher Education; Science Careers; Nature News Blog; UK Daily Mail; The Scientist
- In the chemistry blogosphere: Chemjobber first & second (with many comments); Doing Good Science; ChemBark (also with many comments)
- Chemistry Reddit
- UCLA chancellor’s statement
- National Law Journal
- Chemistry World
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