Scientists may have a false sense of security about the safety of their laboratories, according to early results from the first international survey of researchers’ workplace attitudes and practices.

Some 86% of the roughly 2,400 scientists who responded said that they believe their labs are safe places to work. Yet just under half had experienced injuries ranging from animal bites to chemical inhalation, and large fractions noted frequent lone working, unreported injuries and insufficient safety training on specific hazards (see ‘A question of safety’).

“Understanding this disparity will be key to positively changing safety culture,” says James Gibson, head of environmental health and safety at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). The university’s Center for Laboratory Safety, a research initiative set up in March 2011, commissioned the study as part of a wave of US-led efforts to examine safety culture following the shocking death of a 23-year-old research assistant, Sheharbano Sangji. She received horrific burns in a UCLA lab fire four years ago (see Nature http://doi.org/dnws3n; 2009), and her supervisor, organic chemist Patrick Harran, may face a criminal trial over her death. Other incidents, including a second lab death, at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, in 2011 (see Nature 472, 270–271; 2011), have added to the concerns.

The study “is the most comprehensive attempt at gathering data on attitudes to safety that I’ve seen — and one more piece of information in a growing body of reports that point to the need to improve the culture around safety in our academic laboratories,” says Dorothy Zolandz, director of the US National Academies Board on Chemical Sciences and Technology. Nature Publishing Group,the publisher of Nature, helped to launch the survey, as did the firm BioRAFT, which provides software for safety compliance and receives investment from Digital Science, a sister company to Nature Publishing Group. UCLA’s Center for Laboratory Safety plans to analyze the data more closely later this year, but shared early results with Nature.

Part and parcel
Some of the anonymized survey participants — who were mostly from the United States and United Kingdom, but also hailed from Europe, China and Japan — felt that any injuries they sustained were just part of the job. “Was scratched by a monkey,” one scientist wrote. “It’s bound to happen in that line of work, no matter how careful you are.” Another was bitten while extracting venom from rattlesnakes; a third reported being sprayed on the face and hands with sulphuric acid, leading to US$3,000 of dermatology treatments. The most common injuries were minor — cuts, lacerations and needle pricks — but 30% of respondents said they had witnessed at least one ‘major’ lab injury, something that required attention from a medical professional. More than one-quarter of junior researchers said that they had experienced an injury that they hadn’t reported to their supervisor.

Yet the overwhelming majority of respondents asserted that their labs were safe places to work, that they had received sufficient safety training to minimize injury and that appropriate safety measures had been taken to protect employees. This level of comfort is similar to that found in other, smaller surveys, says Ralph Stuart, secretary of the American Chemical Society’s health and safety division (which has conducted its own surveys on the matter).

But more specific questions in the survey reveal that safety standards are often not adhered to. Only 60% said they had received safety training on specific hazards or agents they worked with, and around half agreed that lab safety could be improved, with chemists (60%) most likely to feel this, and neuroscientists (30%) significantly less so.

4 Comments

1. 1. greenhome123 02:37 PM 1/3/13

   My mom worked in a lab and handled volatile chemicals when she was pregnant with me. I was born with club foot. Fortunately, I had surgery to correct it and it's barley even noticeable now apart from my skinny ankles. Nevertheless, my point is that having children with birth defects is another risk of working in labs.

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2. 2. BoskyO 04:11 PM 1/3/13

   This article also make me wonder about the question of whether hazard signage is kept up to date and whether campus police and/or local police/fire/rescue could be endangered themselves in coming to the aid of a lab worker.

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3. 3. sjn 01:47 PM 1/4/13

   Having worked over 35 years in both industrial & academic R&D I always felt much safer in industrial laboratories. The culture of safety in the university is virtually non-existent. When I interviewed with the Health & Safety group of a major public university, I was told that actually inspecting a researchers laboratory would be considered a violation of their academic freedom. No training was available, & state environmental & safety agencies generally have no or limited jurisdiction on campuses. Absent the threat of criminal or civil action, there is little incentive to make safety a priority
   I had more responsibilities as an R&D manager in industry to provide regular safety training to my staff, then I ever saw in university labs. Worst case, first day on the job in a academic lab handling radioactive materials, my training consisted of "sign this".
   In industry, it is clear that at least the insurance companies who would be forced to cover the damages from industrial accidents, have a reason to insure basic standards are followed . (This meant that in most industrial facilities, the insurance companies requires annual safety inspections to insure basic compliance).
   Unlike industry, in academia there are little or no mechanisms to make safety a priority. The article here, enforces my opinion from experience, that a "tough guy" attitude pervades academic labs (we know how to "handle" this stuff, we don't need safety inspectors etc. After all, how often do "nerds" get to play tough). Undergraduates, research assistants, etc are in no position to challenge lax safety procedures of their academic supervisors, and have even less resources than industrial workers to report or get assistance
   It will take major efforts to install a real respect for safety in academic environments.

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4. 4. bucketofsquid 11:47 AM 1/9/13

   If you want college labs to be safe then impose penalties on the board of regents/directors and the upper echelon of the college/university for lab accidents. Leadership and loyalty have to start at the top and work down or they are meaningless.

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