pubs.acs.
org/acschas Editorial
Let’s Disagree about Safety
Cite This: ACS Chem. Health Saf. 2020, 27, 135−138
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I believe a diverse team is best to manage chemical safety,
and this is why the journal publishes paper by authors from
a variety of backgrounds. This includes graduate (and newly
See https://pubs.acs.org/sharingguidelines for options on how to legitimately share published articles.
graduated) students, environmental safety and health pro-
fessionals, chemical engineers, and others. Yet, the lessons in
their papers hold insights for all of us who work with chemicals
or help mange their risks.
Downloaded via 14.227.232.192 on August 15, 2021 at 13:30:10 (UTC).
As the Editor-in-Chief, I receive inquires from potential
authors concerning the journal’s scope. One of the first I
received came from John Holmes, Emeritus Professor,
University of Ottawa.
John sent me an autobiographical story that included this
line: “I believe that much more has been lost than has been
gained in the current enthusiasm for ‘safety’ at all costs.” It is a
bold statement to make to an editor of a safety journal, and
although I did not agree with it, I decided to lean into the
conversation.
After several lively emails, I asked John if I could invite
Monona Rossol, MS., MFA, Industrial Hygienist, to read his
story and then write an autobiographical response from her
perspective as an industrial hygienist; both John and Monona
read the initial drafts of each others’ works and edited their
own in response.
What follows are John and Monona’s stories. As you read
them I invite you to consider how your own personal
experiences influence your feelingspositive or negative
toward safety practices and risk assessments. And then I invite
you to consider the benefits of engaging colleagues beyond
your immediate sphere of influence in safety discussions.
Enjoy issue number 3.
■
LABORATORY SAFETY: CREED OR OBSESSION?
By John Holmes
Safety in the laboratory is an acquired skill, born of
education and much practice. A lifetime of laboratory
experience began for me long ago and has continued to the
present. Chemists pass on their “safety” knowledge and
experience to students and colleagues by example and by
persuasion, and it is a vital and never-ending responsibility. My
negative experiences with regard to safety (or rather,
accidents) fall into three categories: the unexpected, the
careless, and the uneducated. I provide two examples from the
first category, events that were predictable only with hindsight,
one from second, events that are avoidable, and finally I have a
comment and an amusing story about the uneducated events.
A lifetime of laboratory practice began for me in the 1940s at
my high school in the UK and has continued to the present. At
my high school we were privileged to have an exceptional
© 2020 American Chemical Society
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training in safe practical chemistry, thanks to the teacher, Mr. J
G Knight, and our small class size, about 15−20 teen-age boys.
He made sure that we understood the dangers associated with
strong acids and bases, and we became able to recognize many
substances by their appearance, the effect of water thereon, and
their odor. Thus, for example, adding very small aliquots of
concentrated sulfuric acid to an inorganic “unknown” enabled
us to recognize by (careful) smell, the hydrogen halides, NO2,
H2S, and SO2. These controlled encounters with dangerous
substances removed a fear of them. Our classes in qualitative
and quantitative analysis were a delight and formed the basis
for my life-long fascination with chemistry.
Note that the making of gunpowder was then commonplace
among schoolboys; sulfur and KNO3 could be bought from
pharmacies (aka chemist’s shops), and charcoal came from
garden bonfires. One could also even purchase small pieces of
sodium, contained in naptha, and Mr. Knight had made us
familiar with its exciting reaction with water as well as many
chemical demonstrations, such as the making silicon from
sandby the Thermite reaction.
Caustic Soda Solution. I spent some four years direct
from high-school in an industrial analytical laboratory, where
more experience was accumulated. My first unexpected
accident example comes from there. While an analytical
chemist trainee, one of my routine tasks was to prepare and
maintain the standard solutions for titration analyses, namely,
N/10 acid, base, thiosulfate, and permanganate. One of these
was N/10 NaOH, and its preparation began with the dilution
of a measured aliquot from a saturated bulk sample of caustic
soda (concentration 15N). The latter was contained in a 10 L
round-bottomed flask supported on a cork ring. At the bottom
of this solution was a white sludge of sodium carbonate, which
is insoluble in saturated NaOH solution. On removing the flask
from its cork ring, I gently rested the container on the
benchtop before placing it on an adjacent cork ring. On so
doing, the base of the flask collapsed inward, sending a slow-
moving wave of saturated solution across my lab coat, and onto
my trousers and shoes. A colleague had spotted this and was
quick to douse me with dilute acetic acid. Trousers and shoes
were quickly removed and so I was essentially unharmed
except for sore fingers and ruined clothes. Obviously, and with
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the usual hindsight, the alkali had been slowly dissolving the
glass over a very long period, weakening the base of the flask.
The chief analyst was dismayeda hazard that might have
been avoided.
Much later, in postgraduate studies, we had a more or less
free hand as to how we conducted our research, but with the
help and criticism of our supervisor and the students whose lab
we shared. One important dilemma for the supervisors, and me
in later life, was just how much of their students’ prior training
had taught them about the safe handling of a wide variety of
(potentially dangerous) substances. It is in this problem that
many University laboratory accidents lurk.
Liquid Air As a Trap Coolant. My second avoidable
example occurred while working toward my PhD at London
University where I learned sufficient glassblowing to enable me
to construct my own complex vacuum line in order to study
alkyl halide pyrolyses. The liquid nitrogen used to cool the
many glass traps in such lines was obtained in large cans,
mounted in a frame such that they could easily be tipped to
release the refrigerant through an opening in their conical tops.
They were stored in the basement. It happened that the
company that normally supplied the liquid N2 was on strike,
and as a temporary measure liquid air was brought in instead.
My lab-mate took his empty Dewar flasks to refill them. The
flasks had a capacity of 1 L and were contained in stout
wooden boxes packed with vermiculite as insulation. On
tipping the refrigerant into the first flask there was a violent
explosion and shattered glass from the Dewar flew across the
area, fortunately channeled by the box and completely missing
the student.
We quickly realized that all of our Dewar flasks, used as trap-
coolers with liquid nitrogen, had over a long period
accumulated a small dark viscous condensate of miscellaneous
organic chemicals that had been present in the laboratory.
These reacted immediately with the oxygen in the liquid air. A
lesson learned for the future handling of liquefied gases, which
in this case was fortunately without injury. Later I had occasion
to use liquid oxygen for purifying (by trap-to-trap sublimation,
liquid O2 to solid N2) some NO that I had prepared, and was
very careful as to where it went.
Disposal of Unlabeled Samples. My third example
exemplifies old, bad practices, now no longer tolerated, but a
sharp reminder of the careless past. The disposal of unwanted
chemicals has long been a strong safety issue, and I was
certainly negligent on one occasion, as described below. In past
times, about once a year all redundant chemicals in the
laboratories were collected for disposal. Nowadays these
should be carefully individually identified and safely dealt
with according to their properties. In earlier times volatile
compounds were released and allowed to escape from a fume
hood, while soluble/miscible species went down the sink with
plenty of water. On this occasion a small reagent bottle, about
one-quarter full of a white power, but which had lost its label,
was to be disposed. On the assumption that the substance was
likely water-soluble and inorganic, I placed the bottle in the
sink, inserted the water hose, and opened the tap. By sheer
coincidence at this moment I was startled by a noise at the
other end of the lab and so I turned and hurried away. Behind
me there was a loud explosion and broken glass accompanied
by a brilliant violet flame which flew upward from the sink into
the ceiling above. The unlabeled bottle had contained
potassium, originally clearly labeled and stored under toluene.
The solvent had long since evaporated and so the residue
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consisted of potassium carbonate/hydroxide, masking a
considerable residue of the element.
Uneducated? Mercury has become a subject of fear ever
since the Minimata poisoning, which was principally caused by
industrial pollution of seawaters with CH3Hg+. It is this species
that can carry mercury across cell boundaries and give rise to
brain damage. The element itself was widely used when I was a
child, chiefly in barometers and clinical and other domestic
thermometers. The clinical variety were a potential hazard for
children; I and several of my contemporaries accidentally bit
the end off such a device when being checked for childhood
fever. I certainly did so and the family doctor was not
dismayed, saying that having spat out any fragments, a slice of
brown bread and butter would deal with anything else that I
might have ingested.
In my view, small mercury spills are not a cause for
immediate evacuation and space-suits, but a careful corralling
of the escaped material and its proper storage. Most
laboratories carry a very sensitive handheld mercury detector
which quickly establishes the affected areas, which are often
surprisingly small. On one occasion, however, an event not to
be described here resulted from the night-time breaking of a
working mercury diffusion pump in a vacuum system, by a lab
cleaner’s broomwhen such things were possible. With
exceptional expert help and equipment this very difficult
problem was solved, without panic, within 24 h.
However, all is not doom and gloom. A visiting Australian
colleague asked one of his group to prepare some deuterium
labeled alkyl benzoates for a mechanistic study. They were to
be GLC purified and mailed as tiny samples in capillary tubes. I
later received an emergency phone call from the central post
office and on arrival found the whole staff outside the building.
I was told that a dangerous chemical addressed to me had
leaked, endangering the workers. I inspected the aromatic-
smelling padded mailing envelope; the customs label stated
“GC purified deuterated benzoic esters; sex change hormones”.
Funny nownot then.
To interest students in the fascination of performing
chemistry and to experience it safely, I believe that there is
no substitute for a broad canvas of hands-on experiments in a
well-disciplined setting, starting at high school. Laboratory
courses should be exercises in discovery, unmarred by
groundless fears, and so if possible, safety should be lived
and accrued from experiment, rather than culled from books,
and the officers/teachers responsible should have a very broad
and appropriate practical background.
■
LABORATORY SAFETY: OBSESSION AND CREED
By Monona Rossol
After over 40 years experience as an industrial hygienist, I
have concluded that no one, including chemists, should work
with chemicals without formal training in the toxicity of those
chemicals and the precautions required for their safe use. The
first formal training should be in chemistry class in high school.
Regular chemical-specific training should continue at every
level of education and throughout one’s professional career.
Training in chemistry is especially helpful in understanding
the chemical safety hazards such as flammability, reactivity, and
the like. But knowing how a chemical reacts with other
chemicals is not the same as knowing how the chemical reacts
with chemists. Other sciences and skillsets are needed to more
fully understand the hazards, including the following:
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• physiologyknowing how various organ systems absorb
or are affected by chemicals;
• toxicologyto estimate dose by the four entry routes
and short- and long-term effects;
• biochemistryfollowing the pathways of the chemicals
and their toxic metabolites;
• engineeringunderstanding ventilation and safety
equipment and their limits;
• civil lawawareness of regulations and our rights and
obligations under those laws;
• air quality standardsto understand both indoor and
occupational air quality limits;
• product safety standardsto select the right personal
protective equipment;
• data managementto access chemical inventories,
safety data sheets, and research; and
• waste disposal rulesto know how to safely and legally
clean up and finish the work.
Of all of these sciences, toxicology is probably the most
important. It should help to keep chemists from wishful
thinking about their exposure. For example, I have seen
chemists offer as proof that their work is safe the fact that other
chemists had long lives. I refer to this as the “George Burns
theory of toxicology.” Burns was a Vaudevillian who reportedly
drank a fifth of gin a day and was never without a cigar. He
lived to age 100. Statistics, however, suggest it is not wise to
adopt his lifestyle.
Personal theories, common sense, trial and error, and good
intentions are not enough to make the chemist safe. I base this
conclusion on a lifetime of a rather untraditional background
in art and entertainment safety. However, I feel I can speak to
the training needs of chemists as well since (1) I am one, and
(2) I often OSHA-train science teachers and students as well as
art and theater people when I work for universities.
Early History. My work in the entertainment industry
began in 1939 at age 3 as a union Vaudeville child performer.
My first practical exposure to chemistry was in the family
magic act when I learned about lycopodium, nitrocellulose,
two allotropes of phosphorus, gun powder, pyrotechnic effects,
black light and phosphorescence, and color-changing indicator
dyes.
After leaving my family, I earned a Bachelor’s in Chemistry
at the University of Wisconsin after which I worked seven
years in the University’s Chemistry Department as a teaching
assistant and research chemist with a year off to make real
money in an industrial research lab. While I worked in the
Chemistry Department, I also earned two advanced degrees in
art including an MFA with majors in ceramics and glass-
blowing.
In the course of my art studies, it became obvious that artists
used a greater variety of chemicals and in much larger amounts
than any of the laboratories in which I worked. Artists used
these chemicals out in the open rather than in hoods, and often
without the slightest understanding of their hazards. For this
reason, I researched, wrote, presented, and defended papers on
the chemical hazards of these materials in my graduate school
seminars in 1962 and 1964.
Although I did not even know what this work was called at
the time, I had begun my life-long study and teaching of
industrial hygiene.
Industrial Hygiene. In 1977 in New York City, I began
working in industrial hygiene for nonprofit arts organizations.
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Since 1995, I have been concurrently employed by a local of
the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees
(IATSE) as a Safety Officer.1 In this work I have dealt with
the aftermaths of accidents in which people have been
seriously injured or even killed.
Fires, falls, and other accidents are safety issues that
probably can be prevented with some knowledge of basic
safety principles. But there is a silent, darker threat to artists
that cannot be addressed this waythe threat is from the
health hazards present in the chemicals used in art materials.
Art paints, printmaking inks, and theatrical scene paint often
contain organic pigments and dyes based on aniline or
benzidine which are associated with cancers, bladder cancer in
particular. My personal experience includes an instance in
which one small union scene shop with eight employees had
two workers diagnosed with bladder cancer and two other
workers had cell changes consistent with potential develop-
ment of bladder cancer.
For another example, a host of silica- and asbestos-
containing minerals were (and some are still) used in ceramics
and sculpture. These are responsible for silicosis and
mesothelioma in a number of university teachers and artists.2
In addition, almost every metal in the periodic table is used
for metal alloys, paint pigments, or as colorants in ceramic
glazes, glass, and enamels. Included are lead, cadmium,
mercury, chromium, and even the rare earth metals. Examples
of other chronically toxic chemicals include the solvents used
in so many art processes, toxic monomers such as styrene, and
the isocyanates used in two-component resins.
Many of these chemicals have no obvious immediate
symptoms, causing teachers and artists to think they are safe.
Only in-depth training and information can change this.
Chemists also use many of these and other chronically toxic
chemicals. And some chemists think the current practices
regarding precautions are an over-reaction. A good example is
seen in some of their opinions about metallic mercury. I’ll
illustrate from my own experience.
My Mercury Stories. In the late 1940s, my high school
chemistry class provided an unexpected lesson when the
mercury we were given to handle ruined a gold ring from my
grandmother that was in the shape of a snake with a diamond
in the head. The gold/mercury amalgam that formed when the
mercury was absorbed by the gold weakened the snake’s neck
and the head snapped off. I still have the two pieces unable to
either fix or part with them. But I certainly learned for all time
the concept of an amalgam.
But my high school mercury encounter also left me with the
erroneous impression that mercury was safe to handle. We
were told it was not a threat unless we ate some. It would only
be years later that I would learn the following:
• Swallowing metallic mercury is not much of a hazard.
Very little is absorbed unless there is a blockage or some
other physical reason that the mercury remains for an
extended period of time in the intestinal tract.
• Only a small amount of mercury can be absorbed
through the skin during handling.
• Inhalation of mercury vapor while it is in the open is the
most significant exposure route. At room temperature a
constant stream of invisible mercury vapor molecules are
swirling up from the mercury’s surface into the air.
I also learned there is no safe level of exposure to mercury.
No matter how small the exposure, some harm can always be
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detected even though the person exposed to these low levels
may be asymptomatic and unaware of the damage. And once
absorbed, there is no antidote, and chelation is not always
effective and may be harmful. Mercury can cause adverse
effects on the nervous system, digestive and immune systems,
and on lungs, kidneys, skin, and eyes.
Very high levels, of course, cause overt symptoms. One of
the pollution sources of mercury is organic mercury such as
methyl mercury from fish and other seafood. An instance in the
1960 occurred when local fish were contaminated with
methylmercury due to industrial mismanagement of the
chemical. Named Minamata disease after the town in which
it was first reported, the disease killed some victims, made
others insane, caused numbing in the arms and legs,
impairment of balance, fatigue, ringing in the ears, loss of
vision and hearing, and slurred speech in others. And, of
course, it is an IARC Group 2B carcinogen.3
The most devastating effects of all types of mercury are their
ability to adversely affect the mental and physical development
of the child utero. So a young girl who is exposed to elemental
mercury, as we were in my high school, could have damaged
her children yet unborn.
If we return to elemental mercury for another example of
misinformation, I have heard chemists say that mercury vapor
is “heavier than air” and will stay near the floor where it is not a
hazard by inhalation. Actually the heavy mercury vapor is easily
wafted on the least air current, and slowly, like all molecular
vapors, it will disperse into the air throughout the room or
space. It is why we can measure mercury vapor in the air above
a sink in which mercury has gotten into the trap.
In order to dispel the “heavier than air” myth, I show
students a video made at Bowling Green State University by
the Ohio EPA and Rader Environmental. Called a Mercury
Vapor Experiment, the video graphically shows the mercury
vapor rising from the surface of the liquid vapor and swirling
up on every little air current.4
The mercury video also shows the people doing this
experiment wearing full body protection and respirators.
Seeing this video has changed the minds of chemist who
previously thought this kind of personal protection was an
over-reaction.
Training chemistry students about mercury is more difficult
today because the Internet is full of crazy people doing really
stupid things. For instance, a YouTube video is available which
shows two people pouring mercury from 15 pound bottles into
a tub and then standing in the liquid mercury to demonstrate
that the liquid is so dense a person cannot step to the bottom
and will float instead. These people are also giving viewers the
impression that this is safe to do.
Untested Chemicals. My mercury stories are merely an
example of the complex hazards of just one element as it
interacts with the body. But there are 118 elements. And the
number of molecules they can be combined to form is almost
infinite. The Chemical Abstract Service (CAS) website used to
brag that they had registered over 181,000,000 before they
stopped providing their total counts in about 2016. And the
CAS catalog service (CHEMCATS) used to brag that they
provide commercial sources for about 32 million different
chemicals worldwide.5
The reason this information is no longer readily available, in
my opinion, is that the data makes it easy for people to also
figure out that these millions of chemicals have not been tested
for toxicity. For example, only around 1300 chemicals have
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been studied enough for the International Agency for Research
in Cancer (IARC) to determine if they are carcinogens or not.
Even fewer chemicals have been fully evaluated for their ability
to cause reproductive and developmental damage.
This kind of data makes it easy for both consumers and
chemists to realize we use many chemicals for which there is
no chronic data. It also makes it important for chemistry
students to develop the habit of looking at the safety data sheet
(SDS) for each chemical, especially the toxicology section
(Section 11). When there is no data at all, or it lists one or two
acute animal exposure tests and nothing further, that means
there is no other data.
In this case, no news is not good news. Prudence dictates
that protection from skin contact and inhalation during use of
untested chemicals is needed. It is not part of the chemists job
description to become a human subject to provide anecdotal
data on untested chemicals.
the Bottom Line. Chemistry training, trial and error, and
good intentions are not enough. To remain safe and healthy in
the lab requires some book-learning and formal training. We
need to start this training early, do it often, and continue as
long as we are working. The training must be specific for the
chemicals and processes being done and must include both
what is known and what is NOT known about each chemical’s
hazards. The combination of disciplines needed to do a good
job of this training is actually “industrial hygiene,” which is,
after all, just another science.
Mary Beth Mulcahy, Editor-in-Chief
John Holmes
Monona Rossol
■
AUTHOR INFORMATION
Complete contact information is available at:
https://pubs.acs.org/10.1021/acs.chas.0c00050
Notes
Views expressed in this editorial are those of the authors and
not necessarily the views of the ACS.
■
REFERENCES
(1) Complete resume available on request. Contact actsnyc@cs.com.
(2) Note: I have been retained as an expert in 21 mesothelioma
claims for artists, teachers, and others who worked with ceramics, and
in two for theater workers.
(3) Agency for Toxic Substance & Disease Registry (ATSDR) Toxic
Substances Portal-Mercury. https://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/toxprofiles/TP.
asp?id=115&tid=24 (accessed May 1, 2020).
(4) Mercury vapor can be made visible as a shadow when placed in a
short wave ultraviolet light against a fluorescent background. https://
www.youtube.com/watch?v=lpZF88fqrl8 (accessed May 1, 2020).
(5) Information on the millions of chemicals registered and the
hundreds of thousands in commerce is available from limited sources
such as the European Union’s registration data and the National
Toxicology Program’s publications. The CAS and the American
Chemical Council instead appear to be promoting the opinion that a
very limited number of chemicals are being used and most are tested
for toxicity.
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