Estimate: Academic Labs 11 Times More Dangerous Than Industrial Counterparts

Jim_Austin writes "Academic science labs are generally far less safe than labs in industry; one estimate says that people working in academic labs are 11x more likely to be hurt than their industrial counterparts. A group of grad students and postdocs in Minnesota decided to address the issue head-on. With encouragement and funding from DOW, and some leadership from their department chairs, they're in the process of totally remaking their departments' safety cultures."

Comments

Depends on what they are doing

[Carewolf]

It is anything like my university, the chemistry labs keep blowing up due to students trying to make illegal drugs off hours.

Re:Depends on what they are doing

[ameoba]

Our problem was Electrical Engineering grad students continually burning popcorn in the microwave.

Yeah... the admissions standards were a little soft.

Re:Depends on what they are doing

[usuallylost]

Are you sure it is just the students?

One of my professors in college told me that when he was a graduate student one of his professors got arrested. The guy and a group of his grad students had been cooking up significant amounts of drugs in one of the schools labs after hours. They were using them to throw big drug parties. According to my professor the primary goal of the whole operation was to help them pickup members of a certain sorority that liked to attend the parties. One of the students involved got arrested which lead back to the professor and brought the whole thing down.

Re:Depends on what they are doing

[interkin3tic]

There's also the fact that industrial labs often have routine things they do (mix up these chemicals, repeat until the patent expires in a decade or two) while academic labs have fewer. Academic labs aren't generally suited to doing one thing over and over again, there's a high turnover of people and more incentive through profits to optimize standard operating procedures in private industries.

That can lead to increased safety: if you have a protocol you follow every day, it's probably pretty well thought out, with potential dangerous parts examined closely. Liability, etc.

Meanwhile, me in an academic lab, I'm kind of flying by the seat of my pants at all times, since I'm supposed to be doing new things. "Okay, I'll just pipette off this and put it in the... oh... is this water or is this that horrible carcinogen? I can't remember... What am I even doing, I got really into this Taylor Swift song..."

Really?

[rebelwarlock]

Students less likely to follow safety procedures. News at 11.

Re:Really?

[thegarbz]

No. An over simplification of the matter. The reality is when I was at university there was no safety messages from the faculty, absolutely nothing from on high. Oh, we were told to wash our hands after working with solder because it wasn't lead free and to not put it in our mouth but that is it.

First day in industry, fume extractors, safety glasses, soldering irons with deadman switches in case they were left on absolutely no use of a knife without wearing some gloves.

This isn't students not following safety procedures, this is no safety procedures existing. The head of our school stood right next to me while I was stripping wires by holding the wire between my thumb and a very sharp knife, nothing was said. When a student heated a wire under tension the semester I left and it flicked molten solder in his eye, nothing happened. At my work the HSE team would have lost their collective shits.

Please, editors, do some editing

[wonkey_monkey]

A group of grad students and postdocs in Minnesota decided to address the issue had-on.

Well, that typo could've been worse.

Re:I must have taken the wrong courses

[ericloewe]

I sure as hell hope that's a natural number of boxes, otherwise my whole world is a lie...

Academia is a different environment

[physicsphairy]

IMHO the issue is that academia is not really a hierarchy like in industry. At a big school the freshman labs will be plenty paranoid about safety because of legal liabilities, but once you're talking about professors' private research projects, it's more like a hobbyist working in their basement, and in that situation we're all inclined to become comfortable and take shortcuts. Part of it, also, is the assumption that anyone with a degree comes packaged with knowledge of proper lab technique. What you will find is that, especially when you are talking students and Ph.D.s from different countries, they were trained differently. We have a lot of Russians who seem particularly cavalier. (honestly, if Chernobyl had't already happened, I might be expecting it).

Re:Lab != Industrial site

[FatLittleMonkey]

And if you don't have sloppy health and safety standards in your lab, how can you accidentally discover new phenomena.

If Fleming maintained correct use of an autoclave... If Spencer hadn't walked in front of that unshielded magnetron... If Goodyear had a proper hood over his stove... If the Coca-Cola guy had properly labelled his supplies... If Becquerel properly stored his equipment and samples... If Hoffman (LSD) and Schlatter (Aspartame) had worn gloves or just hadn't licked their fingers after working with chemicals...

[If I hadn't regurgitated the first result of typing "accidental di"]