Recent accidents in industrial laboratories across the country have raised questions about lab safety programs, and whether enough is being done to instill stronger safety cultures. In particular, there are major concerns in these cultures in nonindustrial settings where serious incidents have taken place.
Leaders from the chemical industry published a letter in Chemical & Engineering News expressing their concerns with the “wide gulf in safety cultures,”[i] stating, ““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.”[ii]
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