U.S. Lab Safety Deserves Additional Scrutiny – Paging Upton Sinclair

According to Nature News, since 2008 at least two academic lab workers have died and one lost three fingers from a hand due to accidents in U.S. labs.  Those numbers are both underreported and excessive.  The U.S. Chemical Safety Board has taken the rare step of issuing a report on a 2010 incident at Texas Tech where a graduate student was severely injured.  Among the report’s guidance:

The CSB investigation identified six key lessons for universities and others, including calling on universities to:

- Ensure that research-specific hazards are evaluated and then controlled by developing specific written protocols and training.

- Expand existing laboratory safety plans to address the physical hazards of chemicals

- Ensure that safety personnel report directly to a university official who has the authority to oversee research laboratories and implement safety improvements

- Document and communicate all laboratory near-misses and incidents to educate individuals and track safety at the university.

Frankly I’m a bit stunned at the apparent lax standards and procedures for safety in academic labs.  Of course, my academic training hasn’t involved risky lab work, so I might not be surprised if I had taken a Ph.D. in physics or biology or another lab-intensive discipline.

Has nobody sued an academic lab in cases of researcher injury or other failure to operate safely?  Watch this video and tell me how it doesn’t seem like the folks at MythBusters are taking industrial safety way more seriously than universities spending lots more money on research.

There’s no good excuse for this failure to educate and serve the public, or for the failure for these kinds of losses to not prompt greater remedial action.  Maybe there’s a book in this for some enterprising, literary lab worker.