International survey reveals laboratory environmental safety issues

Recently, the first international survey of scientists’ attitudes to the work environment and their actual conditions revealed that scientists had misunderstood the laboratory’s environmental safety status.

Of the approximately 2,400 scientists involved in the survey, 86% said they believed the lab was safe. However, in fact, nearly half of the people have been injured in the laboratory, such as animal bites, inhalation of chemicals, etc.; many scientists point out that because they often work alone, even if they have been harmed, they have not reported to their superiors. There is a lack of safety training for dealing with specific injuries.

"Recognizing this difference is the key to actively changing the safety environment of the laboratory," said James Gibson, head of environmental health and safety research at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). In March 2011, the University of California, for the first time, established the Laboratory Safety Center as part of a study of the US-led security environment. This progress is due to the fact that in 2008, 23-year-old research assistant Sheharbano Sangji was severely burned and died in a laboratory fire. Her mentor, organic chemist Patrick Harran, may face a criminal trial for her death. Yale University also had a similar laboratory injury death in 2011.

National Academy of Chemical Technology Commission head of DorothyZolandz said the survey "I've seen the most comprehensive survey of scientists try to laboratory safety attitude - it and other relevant reports together that we research laboratories urgent security environment improve". The Natural Publishing Group, which is part of Nature, and BioRAFT, which provides security software, have all participated in the survey. The UCLA's Laboratory Safety Center plans to further analyze the survey data this year.

Really safe, false security?

Some of the anonymous survey participants—mostly from the United States and the United Kingdom, and a small part from Europe, China, and Japan—regarded the damage they suffered as only part of the job. "I was scratched by a monkey." A scientist wrote, "No matter how careful you are, similar injuries will happen at work." Another scientist was bitten while extracting rattlesnake venom; another The scientist's face and hands were splashed with sulfuric acid, and the skin treatment cost $3,000. Minor injuries are the most common - cuts, lacerations and stab wounds, but 30% of respondents said they had witnessed at least one "major" accident in the laboratory and generally required specialized medical treatment. More than a quarter of junior researchers stated that they did not tell the mentor after experiencing laboratory injuries.

Despite this, the vast majority of respondents claimed that their laboratories are safe and adequately trained in safety to minimize laboratory injuries and to adopt appropriate safety measures to protect laboratory workers. Ralph Stuart, secretary general of the Health and Safety field at the American Chemical Society (which has conducted an independent investigation on this issue) said that in other smaller surveys, scientists also hold this attitude.

However, more specific issues in the survey indicate that safety standards are not in place. Only 60% of survey participants answered that they had received safety training in response to specific risks. Almost half of the participants believe there is room for improvement in laboratory safety, with chemists (60%) more likely to have this feeling and neuroscientists (30%) responding more mundane.

Old and young scientists have different views

One of the biggest differences in this survey is the attitude of junior scientists (such as postdoctoral and doctoral students) and senior scientists (such as professors, department heads, and research leaders) on the security environment. About 40% of junior scientists say that they work alone in the laboratory every day, which is harmful to health and increases the likelihood of accidents—compared to only 26% of senior scientists. This shows that mentors do not know much about the security environment of their team.

Overall, about two-thirds of researchers said that they work alone in the lab several times a week. Only 12% of young scientists believe that safety is "the most important in laboratory matters," and 36% of older scientists have this view.

Young scientists may have a clearer view of security measures because they work longer than tutors. More than half of junior scientists work more than 40 hours a week, and only one-fifth of senior scientists work for the same length of time.

Survey results throw more questions

Although health and safety experts were not surprised by this, another finding of the survey was the difference in risk assessment between scientists in the United States and the United Kingdom prior to the experiment—which was partly due to differences in legal requirements. Nearly two-thirds of British scientists said that they use a form approved by a parent agency (compulsoryly mandated by the British Health and Safety Agency) to conduct a risk assessment—compared to only a quarter of scientists in the United States. More than half of U.S. scientists said they would "informally" conduct risk assessments.

Scientists say that the biggest obstacles to improving the laboratory's security environment are "time problems" and "indifferent attitudes." This is due to their lack of understanding of safety regulations and their lack of focus on safety leaders. “There are safety regulations that do not represent true safety. Having a lot of research results in the laboratory does not mean that this is a safe laboratory, but it is likely to be even more insecure,” wrote one scientist.

Some experts in the health and safety field believe that this survey, which contains 100 questions, is too broad and out of focus and it is difficult to draw a definitive conclusion. They also believe that non-random sampling surveys are not reasonable: the survey was registered with nature. Scientists at com send emails and encourage them to pass questionnaires to other scientists they know.

"This survey has led to conclusions and brought more problems. However, this perception survey should indeed raise many questions," said Lou Diberardinis, an expert in the field of health and safety at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Diberardinis' team has studied security issues as one of the four teams funded by the 2012 Lab Security Center Seed Fund.

Zolandz said that this year, the US National Academy of Sciences’ Chemical Science and Technology Committee will work with fellow scientists to formulate behavioral regulations for scientists on how to establish a safe experimental environment.