Laboratory Safety Practices

Hi Everyone! Our monthly call is this Thursday at 3 pm Eastern. The call will open at 2:45 pm for "water cooler" chat if you'd like to join a little early and catch up with your colleagues. The current agenda is listed below, but please let me know ...

UMass Amherst invites applications for a Lab Safety and Industrial Hygiene Officer.  Please see the job posting for details and to apply: https://careers.umass.edu/amherst/en-us/job/507426/lab-safety-industrial-hygiene-services-officer ------------------------------ ...

Good morning! The University of Minnesota is hiring two Research Safety Professionals. One position will be located on the Twin Cities Campus and the other on our Duluth Campus . Take a look and feel free to forward it to anyone who may be interested. ...

Teri, I'm no expert on azides, but Stanford's page on azide safety has lots of good general guidance, and is a great place to start: https://ehs.stanford.edu/reference/information-azide-compounds Chris ------------------------------ Chris Kolodziej ...

The next session of LSI's Prudent Practices Roundtable will be on Friday, February 19th at 1:30 PM (eastern).  Sessions are free and open to all interested.   The session will feature a review and commentary on chapter one of Prudent Practices in ...

Hello So I have a chemist that wants to use azides for chemistry.  He is using organic azides, but still he managed to make a very reactive compound.  If there are some precautions, procedures, or if someone would like to step up as an expert for me, ...

Central Michigan University has an opening for an Industrial Hygienist within the Office of Laboratory and Field Safety -  http://www.jobs.cmich.edu/postings/32969 . Please pass along to anyone you know who may be interested in applying.  Thank you, ...

Dear Colleagues,   <o:p></o:p> <o:p></o:p> One of our EHS projects is to re-evaluate how safety training is incorporated into our undergraduate educational programs at Penn State.  We are hoping to benchmark the extent our colleagues are currently ...

Hi Everyone! I hope the beginning of the year is still going well for everyone. Our monthly call is this Thursday at 3 pm Eastern. The call will open at 2:45 pm for "water cooler" chat if you'd like to join a little early and catch up with our colleagues. ...

A couple of years ago, our Chemistry Dept. was less than 24 hours from being locked out of their buildings.  After a little scrambling, it was avoided.  I would be happy to discuss offline because it was a little complicated and involved some other issues ...

Hi John, Not closed - but before we finished with the new lab we built (in an existing building) the fire marshall asked us to show we were meeting NFPA standard by identifying control areas in the building and then conducting chemical and gas inventories ...

Does anyone have an example of a university or research lab being closed by a local fire authority due to exceeding maximum allowable storage limits for hazardous materials? ------------------------------ John Svenson, PhD, CSP Sr. Safety Partner Chemical ...

Thank you for the question.  Would be kind of interesting to actually dive into the prescription and promotion history for fire blankets.  My hunch is that fire blankets may have been prescribed in a time when fire extinguishers were much less ubiquitous ...

Upon reviewing our current Chemical Hygiene Plan, I noticed that the plan requires a fire blanket be provided in all laboratories where flammable compounds may be used for instructional or research purposes.  I'm not sure that all our labs have these, ...

Hello CSHEMA colleagues, The ASSP Z9.05 Laboratory Ventilation Standard Committee is working on revisions of the standards language right now.  Some of your CSHEMA peers are part of this effort.  One area of particular interest is the standard language ...

Kentek or Laser Safety Institute are good resources ------------------------------ Patricia Delaney Environmental Health & Safety Officer Bridgewater State University Bridgewater MA 508-531-2751 ------------------------------

Robert, At Texas A&M, we've enjoyed working with Kentek ( https://www.kenteklaserstore.com/ ). They've always been very helpful when we've asked for help with various laser calculations. They offer consulting services and have a demo van they drive ...

I'm looking for recommendations for laser safety training/consultation resources.  We have a a laser safety program but will need help in determining MPE numbers etc. as well as directing users to the appropriate level of on-line training.  Thanks for ...

The University of Florida is hiring an EH&S Coordinator I to assist the Laboratory Safety Program Manager with implementation and management of the University's Laboratory Safety Program. For more details, please visit: https://explore.jobs.ufl.edu/en-us/job/515220/environmental-health-safety-coordinator-i ...

Jackie, We've done a lot of work with lab kits/home experiments. I would strongly recommend reaching out to your university's Office of General Council and Risk Management departments (or whoever handles legal and/or insurance issues). Short version ...

Jaclyn: Hopefully attachments come through OK in these replies. If not, let me know and I can provide the text or send the file directly. I've attached a Word document that my colleague adapted from one of the common commercial home-experiment ...

Hi All, I have a last minute request from a Chemistry professor to have students conduct a few low hazard labs at home this semester. Does anyone have a waiver they are using for this that they would not mind sharing? Thank you in advance! Jackie ------------------------------ ...

Hi again everyone! I keep forgetting to mention that we will be on the call 15 minutes early for any questions or just to chat. Hopefully I'll see you shortly! Tristan ------------------------------ Tristan White Safety and Health Specialist Duke University ...

Happy New Year! Becky and I hope everyone has had a good start to their year and has caught up as much as possible with your emails! This is your monthly reminder that the Lab Safety CoP will have our monthly call tomorrow (Thursday), January 7th at ...

About UCSF The University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) is a leading university dedicated to promoting health worldwide through advanced biomedical research, graduate-level education in the life sciences and health professions, and excellence in ...

The University of Memphis is looking for an Occupational Safety Manager for our Environmental Health & Safety Office.  We are seeking a Team Member with a bachelor's degree in Industrial hygiene, occupational safety and health, chemistry or closely related ...

Hi all, I'm looking to refresh my lab safety training for custodians. I've been using the same one for several years, with minor tweaks, and I want to change it up a bit for them. We are doing the training in-person again this year (socially distanced, ...

Hi Sabine, That sounds pretty standard. I would still say a risk assessment would be a good place to start for these. You should also check with your Public Safety and EMS and see if they carry Narcane. I would also probably think about the process for ...

Hi Tristan, Thanks for the reply. I wish I could have been on the lab safety COP meeting call to discuss. Yes, some of our labs are using powders to make their own dilutions to then inject into animals. They are not using DMSO. Thanks, Sabine ...

Hi Sabine, We discussed your question in the Lab Safety CoP meeting just few minutes ago and the main question that came to mind was what would the risks of exposure to the opioids be that would need Narcane? As far as I know, Duke does not require it ...

We've used CITI for our IBC training and only recently switched to another platform. My experience with it was similar to Jay's. Disadvantages: 1. I started using CITI several years ago because I could "tailor" the training to different groups, since ...

Good morning everyone! This is your monthly reminder that our December COP meeting will be tomorrow at 3pm. Make sure to check the COP page to get the updated Zoom link and password as those have changed. Our planned agenda is below: Icebreaker ...

Yes.  Well, not recently.  We've been using CITI for years.  I like it, outside of the fact that all training is generic.  Though I have created other modules in powerpoint, converted to Captivate (I think), and had it added to our CITI portal.   It works, ...

Hi Everyone, Our university is starting the process of onboarding CITI training for IRB, IBC, general research, etc. I was wondering if anyone out there had done the same recently and would be willing to share their experience (what went great, pitfalls ...

Hi Everyone, I would like to hear from other Universities how you handle Research labs that work with opioids. Do you require them to have Narcane on hand and if yes how do they purchase it? Are they required to have protocols that get reviewed by....? ...

Forwarded Announcement: FYI  --   Here's the schedule for LSI's upcoming live courses and webinars in November, December 2020 and January 2021 https://www.labsafety.org/courses-calendar ;  https://www.labsafety.org/lab-safety-webinars . You can ...

Hello Lee, At UT Dallas, we request that the PI/lab members disinfect lab surfaces in the event a confirmed positive or presumed positive (due to exhibiting symptoms) individual occupied the lab space.  We have a lab occupancy scheduling system in ...

Becky, Unsurprisingly, we're right there with you in terms of the six furlough days. However, beyond the length of our holiday break, haven't made plans for any changes this year. We normally have limited on-campus staffing from our Campus Fire Marshals ...

Hi Joy, A few years ago I put a PPT presentation together on this issue.  I'll attach it here as well as some other resources.  Hopefully this will get you the information you need. Kindra ------------------------------ Kindra Kelly-Quagliana Biosafety ...

Good morning everyone! This is your monthly reminder that our COP meeting will be tomorrow at 3pm. Make sure to check the COP page to get the updated Zoom link and password as those have changed. Our planned agenda is below: Icebreaker - Who's used ...

I'm looking for a little light to be shed on the ANSI markings on safety goggles/glasses. Specifically, help my historical and current understanding. 'Back in the day' it was my understanding that if it looked like a google and had the Z87.1 marking that ...

Hi All, I'm the new-ish co-leader of the Lab Safety Community of Practice, along with Tristan. Our meeting is coming up this Thursday, and I had a topic in mind, hoping to spark some discussion so we can talk more at the meeting. I hope all of you are ...

Hello Lee, Labs are asked to close for seven days from the date the confirmed positive researcher was last in. If the lab wants to open sooner than that, EH&S is consulted to determine the appropriate level of cleaning/disinfecting with a suitable disinfectant. ...

Penn's procedure for lab cleaning/disinfection for probable and confirmed cases of COVID-19 (as of today) can be found here: https://ehrs.upenn.edu/covid-19/recommendations-cleaning-labs-suspectedprobableconfirmed-covid-19-cases Recommendations ...

Good morning. Who is responsible...If a lab worker or someone who is using a Core facility reports they are covid positive or symptomatic, does your institution hire a (covid) cleaning contractor or do they expect the lab personnel to disinfect the lab. ...

Check out NFPA 600 guidelines Dennis ------------------------------ Dennis Terpin Retired, Manager Industrial Hygienist/Emergency Manager University of Illinois Chicago Bolingbrook IL ------------------------------

We want you to call 9-1-1 even if you've successfully put the fire out. As to when to fight or flee, this seems like a good starting point. Jeff https://www.osha.gov/SLTC/etools/evacuation/portable_relation.html#Assessment -- ...

Jack, I'm not sure if this is what you are looking for... but in our general lab safety training we teach everyone how to use an extinguisher (PASS) and that they only have a limited amount of extinguishing capabilities and therefore, if a fire is ...

General fire extinguisher training guidance is that if the fire is bigger that a waste basket then you should not try to put it out but just evacuate. Take the fire extinguisher with you in case you need to clear a path or break a window. ...

All, We're currently considering working with labs to have them develop fire safety plans for processes that run a risk of fire. Part of this would be establishing the parameters in which it is considered safe for the lab to contain the fire themselves, ...