by Bryan Connors, M.S., C.I.H., H.E.M.
Felony charges have been filed against the
University of California and a University of California, Los Angeles
(UCLA) chemistry professor in connection with a laboratory fire that
killed a staff research assistant three years ago. The L.A. County
district attorney’s office has filed criminal charges against the
chemistry professor responsible for the training and supervision of the
research assistant, and the regents of the University of California with
three counts each of willfully violating occupational health and safety
standards, resulting in the research assistant’s death. This tragedy has prompted universities and biotech facilities across the nation to scrutinize their own laboratory safety programs to ensure that they are adequately protecting employees from injury. EH&E manages environmental health and safety (EH&S) programs for several large research institutions in Boston and Cambridge, MA and understands these concerns. Similar incidents reported by the media have driven our staff to conduct internal reviews of our own programs to identify vulnerabilities and make improvements. This article offers insights from our internal reviews and resulting efforts on strategies we’ve found to be successful at improving safety program performance...
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Environmental Health and Engineering Webinar
Best Practice Strategies for Laboratory Safety Programs
2/7/12 EST Pice: $0.00
Learn
best practices and proven strategies for implementing, maximizing, and
tracking the effectiveness of lab safety management programs.
Registration Deadline: 2/7/2012 10:00:00 AM
