Safety at university laboratories

[gladmom]

<p>Apparently there are significant safety differences in the labs run by universities and those by industry. See the following very interesting article from 2009. What</a> makes academic laboratories such dangerous places to work? - By Beryl Lieff Benderly - Slate Magazine: What can be learned from the death of a young biochemist at UCLA?

[quote]
Though no one keeps comprehensive national statistics on laboratory safety incidents, James Kaufman, president of the Laboratory Safety Institute in Natick, Mass., estimates that accidents and injuries occur hundreds of times more frequently in academic labs than in industrial ones.

[/quote]

[quote]
Why the difference between industry and academe? For one thing, the occupational safety and health laws that protect workers in hazardous jobs apply only to employees, not to undergraduates, graduate students, or research fellows who receive stipends from outside funders. (As a technician, Sheri Sangji was getting wages and a W-2. If she'd been paying tuition instead, Cal/OSHA could not even have investigated her death.)

[/quote]
</p>

<p>An interesting recent article: Plague</a> death uncovered - The Chicago Maroon</p>

<p>A researcher died of plague in 2009 from the same strain that he was researching. He had hemochromatosis (that he didn't know he had) which allowed the weakened strain to kill him. According to the article:

[quote]
Still, how the bacterium got into his blood remains a mystery. According to the report, Casadaban did not attend all of the required safety procedure classes and did not consistently wear gloves while handing Y. pestis.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>If that is true, here was a researcher handling plague who didn't always wear gloves. He couldn't even be bothered to go to all the required safety classes. My own D has been working in a bio lab there for several years and just went to her first safety class and took her first online safety course. The lab didn't make her do it sooner, they just left it to her when, and if, she was ever going to do it. Both she and her boss were lax in not following through on this. Oh, and she only ever wears a lab coat and other required clothing when they have a safety inspection once every couple of years. This makes me fume.</p>

<p>There are so many variables in lab accidents: institutions that don't insist on the following of safety protocols, not enough safety requirements in the first place, people who ignore safety requirements.</p>

[BunsenBurner]

<p>Many academic lab incidents go unreported because the students or postdocs fear they could get in trouble wih the PI or for lack of information about what and where needs to be reported. Apparently, right before Sheri’s death there were some accidents that went unreported.</p>

[BunsenBurner]

<p>Moderators, could you please move this thread to the Parents’ Cafe since the topic is not directly related to college admissions?</p>

<p>As far as college choices/admissions go… Sometimes I wonder how many parents are savvy enough to notice small safety violations while touring the top notch science facilities at their child’s dream colleges? Very few people posting on the forum would probably bother to look at the expiration dates of fire extinguishers, pay attention to clutter around safety showers and eywashes, availability of lab coats, etc., but those little things would be indicative of the overall attitude toward safety in research labs.</p>

[Collegemom]

<p>

Moderators, could you please move this thread to the Parents’ Cafe since the topic is not directly related to college admissions?

</p>

<p>The Parents Forum is for topics related to colleges, not just admissions. The Parents Cafe is for off-topic (non-college or non-education) subjects.</p>

<p>The subject of this thread is college related.</p>

[gladmom]

<p>If you have a child working in a university lab, or taking classes with labs, you might want to mention how important it is to adhere to safety procedures, going above and beyond if the school doesn’t emphasize them. I know that my comments to my own child have landed on deaf ears, but I feel better for having given my 2¢ worth. I even mentioned it to my son who is an econ major and has no more lab classes. His girlfriend is a science major and maybe he’ll mention it to her.</p>

<p>Another really good article about the UCLA lab death from burns: [Taken</a> for Granted: The Burning Question of Laboratory Safety - Science Careers - Biotech, Pharmaceutical, Faculty, Postdoc jobs on Science Careers](<a href=“http://sciencecareers.sciencemag.org/career_magazine/previous_issues/articles/2009_05_01/caredit.a0900054]Taken”>http://sciencecareers.sciencemag.org/career_magazine/previous_issues/articles/2009_05_01/caredit.a0900054)</p>

<p>

The synthetic sweater and flammable gloves she wore–she was not wearing a lab coat–burst into flames. She apparently ran away from, not toward, the lab’s shower. She succumbed to her injuries on 16 January at a hospital burn center.

She had only been working there 3 months.</p>

<p>

What accounts for this difference [between the larger percentage of uni vs. industry lab accidents]? “One word: training,” says Russell Phifer, chair of ACS’s chemical health and safety division. As an example, he cites the publicly available information on Sangji’s death, which, he says, makes clear that “everything that went wrong can be blamed on improper training. Any one of five or six different things going differently could have saved her life.”

Instead of the detailed and well-documented safety training that is standard practice in industry, therefore, “unfortunately, all too often, at the college level, safety is not taken seriously enough,” Phifer says. “Practically no colleges require, for instance, a safety orientation,” he notes, adding that training for grad students is generally no better. “Emphatically, the biggest industry complaint about people that are going to work in labs is that more than likely they have not had proper safety training.” In the labs of many competitive academic researchers, furthermore, time and publication pressure favor productivity over performing and documenting safety training.

</p>

[soozievt]

<p>I mentioned the Yale tragedy to my daughter who worked in shops in her grad program. She is currently overseas on a trip. I asked her if a supervisor has to be in the shop and she said that a person who is trained must be in the shop but that students, like herself, have been trained and so it doesn’t mean that some university supervisor must be in there with them. (POIH, if you are reading this, alas, this was at MIT, my D’s grad school and your D’s current university!!)</p>

[RacinReaver]

<p>I imagine a lot of the safety problems also are due to constantly having new people enter labs and a pretty high turn over rate. If industry was to have an entire lab’s workers turn over every 5 years or so I imagine they would have similar problems. I know in my own lab we tend to have the most issues with summer students (who receive safety training on Day 1) because they’re just not familiar with all of the possible things that go wrong.</p>

[BunsenBurner]

<p>RacinRiver, true, but…</p>

<p>" If industry was to have an entire lab’s workers turn over every 5 years or so I imagine they would have similar problems."</p>

<p>This made me smile. Several of the biotechs I worked for lasted less than 5 years. Somehow, we all wore eye protection, gloves and lab coats, had annual safety refresher training, monthly safety committee meetings, etc.</p>

<p>The biggest difference between academia and industry is that it looks like academia is allowed to “police” itself when it comes to safety:</p>

<p>

An employee at the Bridgeport office of the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration early Wednesday said they only have jurisdiction over accidents that involve paid workers.</p>

<p>But by early afternoon, Ted Fitzgerald, spokesman for the OSHA office in Boston, said that, after more fact-gathering, OSHA decided to open an investigation. He described it as a “fine line,” since Dufault was a student and not a worker, but because the equipment in question could expose employees to a potential hazard, OSHA can come in. Fitzgerald said it would review whether safety standards were followed; if there was a violation, OSHA could potentially cite the university and impose a fine.</p>

<p>City officials said they are not responsible for reviewing safety issues at Yale. That function is the purview of the university’s Environmental Health & Safety Department, which has some 50 workers, with a safety manager assigned to each building.

</p>

[ParentOfIvyHope]

<p><a href=“POIH,%20if%20you%20are%20reading%20this,%20alas,%20this%20was%20at%20MIT,%20my%20D’s%20grad%20school%20and%20your%20D’s%20current%20university!!”>quote</a>

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Before starting the thread about the incident I talked to DD and found out about labs safety requirements at her college. She participated in UROP as a freshman itself so she referred me to the following site:</p>

<p>[MIT</a> UROP: For Students - Safety Requirements](<a href=“http://web.mit.edu/urop/guides/safety.html]MIT”>http://web.mit.edu/urop/guides/safety.html)</p>

<p>which clearly state an UROP student is not allowed to be alone at any time. Since your DD is a grad student so rules are different for them.</p>

<p>

The PI/Supervisor of the laboratory is ultimately responsible for the health and safety of everyone in his or her laboratory, including employees and undergraduate researchers (UROPs). It is expected that UROP students will be supervised at all times while in the laboratory or other potentially hazardous environments. Therefore, a UROP student should not be assigned to be a supervisor, even of other UROPs or high school students.

</p>

<p>Now you know why I was so much upset at Yale. The undergraduate girl should not be alone in a workshop operating a hazardous machine at 1 A.M. </p>

<p>It was just plain wrong and blatant lapse of safety at Yale.</p>

[musicprnt]

<p>The problem with school labs is probably that there are so many people using them at any given time and with supervision that can range from great to lax, you can have problems. When I was in school, the labs seemed pretty well run, they were very good with safety, especially in organic chemistry where the chemicals were all up there on the list of cancer causing elements and so forth and the LA’s were pretty good at keeping an eye on us. A lot of it depends on who is running the labs, the guy running them where I went to school was a pretty intense dude, and he had serious background from what I understand, had run labs at major research facilities and such, it could be in other places they aren’t as rigorous. Put it this way, if they saw us without aprons and goggles, if they saw loose sleeves, not wearing gloves, leaning over something being heated, long hair not tied back, etc there would be hell to pay…</p>

<p>Though we used to think it had to do with the irony of where the labs were. The chemistry labs were in Brown building at NYU, which was the site of the triangle shirtwaist factory fire that took 140 lives.</p>

[RacinReaver]

<p>Nice point about short lived companies, BB. ;)</p>

<p>I do have to comment on this, though, “The biggest difference between academia and industry is that it looks like academia is allowed to “police” itself when it comes to safety:”</p>

<p>I know at my school we have the local fire department come through looking for safety violations, and they have the ability to fine us for any violation they catch (which they are quite happy to do, since they can make pretty decent money off of it). We also get walk-throughs by a federal agency (I forget if it’s OSHA or EPA or someone else) that can fine us for safety violations, environmental violations (leaving bottles of solvents uncapped), etc. I imagine since pretty much all grad students in the sciences are funded, OSHA would be involved in those labs.</p>

<p>I’ve actually had some issues with my school’s attitude on safety recently, as the university leaves it up to the individual divisions to set safety guidelines. For example, in the Chemical & Chemical Engineering division, it’s mandatory to always wear safety glasses. For this reason, they will pay for prescription safety glasses for anyone that wears prescription lenses (similarly with them providing lab coats). In my division, they make the argument that since not every lab requires safety glasses or lab coats, they shouldn’t have to pay for them. This then makes the burden fall on individual advisors who tend to be a bit less generous with paying for safety equipment.</p>

[gladmom]

<p>In the botany lab where my D works, there are university-wide required safety courses, some that you have to attend in person and others that you take online. However, there don’t seem to be any consequences if the employee doesn’t follow through. There are also university-wide requirements for lab attire, which, again, aren’t enforced. I think the professor in charge of my D’s lab should be doing the enforcing, but it doesn’t happen.</p>

<p>As far as what I can find out from my D, the employee is responsible for laundering his/her own lab coat. I think that should be done by the university, since it would make for much better compliance. They should make it really easy for employees to walk in every day, grab a clean coat, use it and then put it in the dirty laundry bin at the end of the day. As it is, few people in her lab wear them. Safety isn’t taken too seriously.</p>

[soozievt]

<p>POIH, when I was thinking of the equipment, I was not thinking of a chemical or research laboratory, but rather shops that use machinery that can be dangerous in my D’s field of architecture. (my D has built various things)</p>

<p>From MIT"s site for the School of Architecture:</p>

<p>

Prototyping Lab + Woodshop</p>

<p>Rapid Prototyping Lab Information:</p>

<p>The Architecture Department’s Rapid Prototyping Lab provides equipment and software that students and faculty can use to fabricate physical objects from CAD models. RPL facilities include three ULS laser cutters, a ZCorp 3D printer which creates three-dimensional models from CAD designs, and a CNC router which carves wood or foam in three dimensions under computer control. Laser cutters are available for use by students 24 hours/day following a mandatory safety training session. Students pay a fee for using the ZCorp printer equal to the cost of the materials used.</p>

<p>RPL Website: [Rapid</a> Prototyping Lab](<a href=“http://web.mit.edu/arch/RPL]Rapid”>http://web.mit.edu/arch/RPL)
Woodshop Information:</p>

<p>There are two shops available to Architecture Department students: a model building shop on the fourth floor of building 7, adjacent to the main studio areas, and a shop in Building N51, first floor, for larger projects.
The RPL and the wood shops are supervised by Chris Dewart.

</p>

<p>[Prototyping</a> Lab + Woodshop](<a href=“http://architecture.mit.edu/rapid-prototype-lab-woodshop.html]Prototyping”>http://architecture.mit.edu/rapid-prototype-lab-woodshop.html)</p>

<p>So, as my D told me, she had to go through safety training but then could use the machinery unsupervised at any time of day.</p>

[ParentOfIvyHope]

<p>soozievt: You are forgetting that your DD is a post graduate student at MIT and rules applicable to undergraduates like my DD might not be applicable to your DD.</p>

<p>Undergraduates have to go through UROP to use the Architecture Labs also. So the rules of UROP are applicable to all labs including Architecture labs.</p>

<p><a href=“http://architecture.mit.edu/course-4-urop.html[/url]”>http://architecture.mit.edu/course-4-urop.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

[Pizzagirl]

<p>

Sometimes I wonder how many parents are savvy enough to notice small safety violations while touring the top notch science facilities at their child’s dream colleges? Very few people posting on the forum would probably bother to look at the expiration dates of fire extinguishers, pay attention to clutter around safety showers and eywashes, availability of lab coats, etc., but those little things would be indicative of the overall attitude toward safety in research labs.

</p>

<p>My D plans to be a chemistry major and we’ve toured the science facility at her school, but honestly I wouldn’t have a clue about any of this. I’m not at all familiar with what these labs “should” look like, what their protocol should be, and I would hazard a guess that 98% of parents aren’t, either. My H was a biology major and is a physician, and certainly spent time in chemistry labs, but I doubt he’d know either - that was years ago.</p>

[soozievt]

<p>POIH, I realize my kid was a grad student, not an undergrad like your D, at MIT. But as she started there on her 22nd birthday, I’m not sure the big difference in safety protocols between someone like her and someone like your D who will be 22 during her senior year I imagine. Young people can have an accident in any college facility, undergrad or grad, HYPSM or other elite colleges, or community colleges. I really see no difference that you have made between these academic settings (on another thread). Smart people get injured too. Accidents happen at well endowed schools too. Safety is taught at community colleges too.</p>

[ParentOfIvyHope]

<p>soozievt: I do understand that just being a graduate student doesn’t make some one more mature or responsible but the college has a policy where an undergraduate student can’t be given responsibility of the lab on their own.</p>

<p>It’s to deter the possibility that there is no technical difference in a 17/18 year freshman undergraduate and 21/22 year old senior undergraduate. </p>

<p>So Yale has shown irresponsibility by allowing an under graduate student to be alone in the lab at 1 A.M. Yale has the resources to provide round the clock supervision which a community college won’t have just because of the lack of the funds.</p>

<p>Yale charge students $40,000 instead the $1000 charged by community college. Yale can’t escape by saying a 22 year old undergraduate is no different from a 22 year old graduate student. An undergraduate is an undergraduate and Yale should have been more responsible in the safety of these students inside the labs.</p>

<p>Survival rate of children in African countries is very less compare to USA because of the facilities. If today a child die of malaria in USA then it’ll be a big news because it should not happen. USA can provide the basic immunization to its children.
Similarly Yale has ample resources to provide such safeties and should be hold responsible for this accident.</p>

[soozievt]

<p>POIH, this was all debated on the other thread that was closed in deference to the respect that a young woman has died a tragic death. Others replied to you there and I stayed out of it. I agreed with so much of what I read in their replies. You don’t know who is to blame (IF ANYONE in the first place as sometimes accidents happen even with the best precautions in place, the most funding, the brightest people, etc.), as the accident hasn’t even been fully investigated yet. We don’t know if there was something negligent on the school’s part or the student’s part or just a very freak thing that could not be avoided. We don’t know YET. You are drawing your own conclusions on that matter. Further, such an accident, in my view, would mean nothing different to me had it happened at a school that is not your “HYPSM” (never heard of that acronym until CC!). Even a less endowed college should, and usually does, have safety protocols in place. You also wrote elsewhere that you might expect this from students who were not as bright as students at Yale or some such. Oh please. I can’t even go there. Ya know, my D2, who many tell me they find to be “brilliant” (I can say this as her mom but honestly have heard this from many), had a terrible accident and could have died (we are so lucky she survived). It can happen to anyone. It’s just as terrible when it happens to a community college student too. </p>

<p>I stayed out of the other discussion and likely will be sorry I posted on this thread. </p>

<p>As an aside, totally unrelated to this thread (SORRY to others), but I just have to tell you POIH, you were on my mind this week before reading these CC threads. My D who was in grad school chose to withdraw from MIT (oh, the horrors, imagine her opting to leave one of the tippy top grad programs in her field voluntarily!!) to pursue a specialty within her field and apply to grad programs for the fall in that specialized field. There are not many programs in the country in her specialty and so she only applied to a few and was very lucky to be admitted to them with such low acceptance rates. Guess what? She just turned down Stanford with a very large scholarship. All I could think of was you in that regard. She picked the best fit (another very selective program) and did not pick the HYPSM school (which also had the largest scholarship). I figure you would l think she was nuts. We are fully behind the great choice she made (another top program in this specialty, but it is not part of the HYPSM acronym). Now back to our regularly scheduled program. :D</p>

[ParentOfIvyHope]

<p>soozievt: Congratulations to your DD! and I wish her all the success in life.</p>

<p>I didn’t want to bring the issue again but “An undergraduate student without supervision at 1 A.M. in a workshop operating a hazardous machine” a very big RED flag against an institute of the calibre like Yale.</p>

<p>Let’s just end it here. We have to agree to disagree.</p>

[soozievt]

<p>I do question why the student was alone (though we don’t know for sure that she was), but again, I see that as a problem at any school of any caliber and absolutely cannot see why the fact that it was at Yale has any significance. It would be an issue anywhere.</p>

<p>Your child, in general (not just lab work), isn’t safer because she is at MIT than if she was at school at Podunk U. Safety is an issue everywhere and among all students.</p>