Old versus young
One of the biggest gulfs picked up by the survey was differences in attitudes to safety between those in junior roles (such as postdocs and PhD students) and those in more senior positions (such as professors, heads of department and principal investigators). Around 40% of junior scientists said that people worked alone in their lab every day — compounding the risk to health should an accident occur — compared with just 26% of senior respondents (see graph 2), raising the possibility that supervisors are not always aware of the safety culture in their own group.
Overall, about two-thirds of researchers said that people worked alone in their lab at least several times a week. And only 12% of younger scientists said that safety was “paramount, and takes precedence over all other lab priorities”, compared with 36% of senior scientists.
Younger researchers may have a clearer view of safety practices: controlling for other factors, junior researchers worked longer hours at the bench than their bosses. More than half of juniors worked over 40 hours per week, compared with just one-fifth of seniors, with almost 150 people overall reporting more than 60 hours per week.
Another finding — which comes as no surprise to health and safety experts — was the difference in how US and UK scientists assess risks before they start an experiment, which is, in part, a consequence of differences in legal requirements. Almost two-thirds of British scientists said that they used their organization’s approved form for risk assessments — which is mandated by the nation’s Health and Safety Executive — compared with only one-quarter of Americans. More than half of US scientists instead said they assessed risk “informally”.
The biggest barriers to improving safety in the lab were “time and hassle” and “apathy”, scientists said. “If I could have selected apathy three times over, I would have,” one scientist wrote. These factors were closely followed by lack of understanding of safety requirements, lack of leadership and a focus on compliance requirements over safety. “Compliance does not equal to (sic) safety. More paperwork does not equal a safer lab; if anything, it makes it less safe,” wrote one researcher. Another complained: “Safety training is very obviously aimed at instituting blind compliance to avoid liability. It is not aimed at teaching lab workers about why each safety measure is put in place.”
Those feelings might explain researchers’ mixed attitudes to the value of safety training, inspections and safety rules. Two-thirds of those surveyed thought that lab inspections improved safety, with senior scientists significantly more likely to agree than juniors. Yet two-fifths felt that safety training “focused on training compliance regulations rather than on improving laboratory safety”, although 32% disagreed. And close to one-fifth of researchers said that lab safety rules had negatively impacted their lab productivity.
“These respondents are wrong, and this is a reflection of an urban myth [about the value of safety procedures] — it is highly frustrating,” comments Neal Langerman, who runs the consulting company Advanced Chemical Safety, based in San Diego, California.
Some health and safety experts think that the survey — which involved almost 100 questions — was too broad and unfocused to draw definite conclusions. They also criticized its non-randomized sampling technique: the survey was sent out by e-mail to scientists who had registered on nature.com, and to research leaders, who were encouraged to pass it on to their lab scientists. But the experts acknowledged that it was a necessary and useful starting point for further investigation.
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4 Comments
Add CommentMy 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.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis 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.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHaving 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
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI 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.
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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