This is the text from the CHAS monthly newsletter which went to the CHAS membership this morning.

- Ralph

News from ACS Division of Chemical Health & Safety, June 2022

In this issue:

- ACS CH&S Call for Papers: Shifting Culture from Blame to Gain: A Call for Papers to Openly Discuss Chemical Incidents
- Resources for Lab Lessons Learned Programs
- Upcoming Workshops: Empowering academic researchers to strengthen safety culture, June 26
- May 12 Webinar follow up: Careers in Chemical Safety for Chemists
- The Emerging Role of the "Embedded Safety Professional"
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ACS CH&S Call for Papers: Shifting Culture from Blame to Gain

A group of grad students from different US institutions are co-editing a virtual Special Issue for the ACS CHAS Journal. The call for papers (introduction below) on chemical incidents has been published at https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.chas.2c00031

The introduction for this call is:
Our goal is for early and mid-career researchers to be comfortable discussing openly chemical incidents; shifting the current environment of reporting incidents from blame to one of gain.

As chemists, we are expected to be familiar with the hazards of chemicals, processes, and apparatuses associated with our work. Whether in industry, academia, or government, we rely on the information found in standard operating procedures (SOPs), Safety Data Sheets (SDSs), and risk assessments.

When something goes wrong in the lab, the first questions often raised are "Were you following the SOP?" and "What does the SDS or risk assessment say?" Sometimes, however, these documents are not enough. A recent incident involving accidental dichloromethane (DCM) injection led to the discovery that the SDS of DCM did not, in fact, contain information about injection hazards, despite the serious consequences for the victim.

Likewise, another publication highlighted inconsistencies in reproductive hazard classification across authoritative safety documentation (e.g., SDS, NIOSH Pocket Guide, etc.). Finally, even well-intentioned and thoughtful risk assessments may not foresee all of the potential consequences, and lessons will need to be learned to better prepare for the future.

We believe that ACS Chemical Health & Safety is well positioned to "fill the gaps" to help the scientific community learn from the experiences of others by sharing our experiences in a Virtual Special Issue (VSI) that highlights chemical incidents. In VSIs, manuscripts are initially published in a regular issue shortly after they are accepted for publication. Once all VSI papers have been accepted, they are collected onto a single webpage, giving additional exposure to each author's work. Our goal in collating this VSI is to promote an open and informative environment where incidents and near misses can be shared by researchers, without blame or shame for those involved, to educate and prevent others from experiencing similar consequences.

- Monica Nyansa
Michigan Tech University

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Lessons Learned Resources

"Did you know that this has happened before?" is not a question we want to hear when we are reviewing an lab incident or near miss. We would rather prevent multiple instances of harmful or destructive events. Proactive identificating contributing factors can be achieved by implementing near-miss reporting systems. While these systems are a long-standing practice in industry, these have only caught on more recently in academia. A recent C&EN article, How to capture and use near-miss lab-incident reports in academia, reported on successful programs that have been implemented at universities, with notable impact on incident reduction and compliance improvement.

Keys to success noted in the article are anonymity of reporting, marketing of the system, trust building, and responsiveness to reports. Obstacles these program face can be the expense of manpower needed for conducting the reviews, the commitment of labworkers time and attention, and support of peer intervention. One example discussed is the University of Minnesota, where a student-run organization, the Joint Safety Team, collects this incident data using Google forms and then develops Learning Experience Reports. Similar compilations of lessons learned summaries can be found at a number of other universities, too, as listed in this DCHAS blog post and in this NC State University Chemistry department safety resources page. Such a practice of creating and posting anonymized summaries of incidents can serve as a helpful stepping stone in a progression toward developing and implementing your own powerful, near-miss reporting system.

- Melinda Box
North Carolina State University
June CHAS Workshops

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Reminder: CHAS workshops are offered year round.
Check out the CHAS web site at https://dchas.org/2022/03/29/workshops2022/ for the most current schedule!

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ACS Webinar on EHS Careers for Chemists

The May ACS webinar on EHS careers for chemists provided a lively panel discussion presented by three CHAS members. You can see their powerpoint slides and the selected questions and answers from the audience on the CHAS web site at https://dchas.org/2022/05/18/chemical-safety-careers-webinar/ The recording of the webinar can be found on the ACS webinar page.

A small group of CHAS members is working together to develop a FAQ list for chemists considering this career transition. Contact membership**At_Symbol_Here**dchas.org to contribute your questions to this project.
The May webinar discussed focused professional EHS opportunities for lab workers. However, we didn't discuss an increasingly prominent role, that of the Embedded Safety Professional. This role is described here by Shannon Nephew, who has been serving as a Chemical Hygiene Officer as part of her work in managing support services for the teaching and research labs at her institution.
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The Emerging Role of the "Embedded Safety Professional"

As safety culture has evolved over the last several years, many universities have developed positions of safety "leadership" that focus specifically on academic laboratory safety. Frequently, these roles are added on to an existing employee's current job responsibilities. This type of Embedded Safety Professional (ESP) position is advantageous in many aspects; the most important is that other employees view them as a peer, rather than a person in an administrative or managerial position.

When approaching safety as a team venture, as opposed to one of an authoritarian nature, the person in this role can be well-received by co-workers. Additionally, when there is a more diverse group of stakeholders, lab workers are exposed to departments which may be different from their own. So when the ESP conducts meetings where each department is represented, they can jointly discuss policy and procedures, develop SOPs, analyze near misses and incidents, and brainstorm and collaborate on future safety education endeavors. Creating a culture of safety in this manner, generates a feeling of accountability and ownership among all stakeholders, thereby unifying the group and intensifying the feeling of "being on a safety team."

- Shannon Nephew,
SUNY Plattsburgh

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