There's an article on the APLU task force in the Chronicle of Higher Ed as well. The first few paragraphs are below, as well as a link to the complete article.

- Ralph

Under Pressure, Universities Take a Renewed Shot at Improving Lab Safety

By Paul Basken

Motivated by the fear of possible new federal regulations, university leaders gathered in Washington on Wednesday as part of a national study commission seeking strategies to improve lab-safety conditions.

It was the third straight year a commission has convened to scrutinize the issue, motivated by a series of high-profile accidents that illustrated the much poorer safety record of university labs compared with their corporate counterparts. This year's panel, assembled by the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities, will emphasize ways of expanding upon and carrying out some of the ideas raised by the previous two commissions, its leaders said.

"We view ourselves as sort of enabling the recommendations from those two efforts," said a co-chairman of the effort, T. Taylor Eighmy, vice chancellor for research and engagement at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville.