I think Pete got to the key point here. All EHS personnel I am familiar with in research environments highly value a collaborative

relationship with research staff.  They are also beholden to the institution management to highlight risks to the institution.  Ultimately

management makes a risk / benefit decision, similar to countless other risk / benefit decisions they make in other areas of the business.

I don't see where an academic freedom argument exists in this case.

Ken

Ken Kretchman, CIH, CSP   Director, Environmental Health and Safety

NC State University / Box 8007 / 2620 Wolf Village Way / Raleigh North Carolina 27695-8007

Email: Ken_Kretchman**At_Symbol_Here**ncsu.edu / Phone: (919).515.6860 / Fax: (919).515.6307

On Sun, Dec 30, 2018 at 3:49 PM Reinhardt, Peter <peter.reinhardt**At_Symbol_Here**yale.edu> wrote:

I think that nearly all EHS professionals greatly prefer to be partners with researchers, to help researchers in their work. While the loss of important fluorine research is unfortunate, it appears that the lab/PI in the article is the exception. In this case, my reading is that EHS did the proper thing--to raise the "incidents" and substandard conditions to university leadership's attention, to conduct a safety review, and to bring in outside experts to evaluate the cost of brining the lab up to standards. As I read this article, it was the university leadership's decision to close the lab, not their Office of Research Safety. Hard choices sometimes need to be made, and I am proud that Clemson made a decision on the side of safety. 

Proper PPE for handling N2 is not costly, so I must wonder if the PI truly makes safety a priority. I also wonder if the PI had requested standard safeguards (i.e., the necessary $1 million in safety upgrades) from the university or in his grants. 

Again, this really appears to be the exception. Exceptions happen. EHS professionals are expected to act when they find such safety problems. As a result, partnerships may end and (unsafe) research may be impeded. And it really has nothing to do with academic freedom.

Pete Reinhardt, Yale EHS

---

From: ACS Division of Chemical Health and Safety <DCHAS-L**At_Symbol_Here**PRINCETON.EDU> on behalf of Lawrence Tirri <larry.tirri**At_Symbol_Here**UNLV.EDU>
Sent: Sunday, December 30, 2018 1:56 AM
To: DCHAS-L**At_Symbol_Here**PRINCETON.EDU
Subject: Re: [DCHAS-L] Academic freedom?

 

Neal,  I agree completely with how you describe the role of safety staff. Before retirement, when I was leading the safety department, my team established a collaborative relationship with academic and research faculty. The question we asked was how we could help them work safely with the materials and equipment they needed to use.  We viewed this as our responsibility, and to help both the academic and research faculty develop their understanding that they too had the responsibility to work safely and to mentor their students to work safely as well by setting the example..   

Larry Tirri, Emeritus

Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry 

UNLV

Sent from my iPhone

On Dec 29, 2018, at 4:17 PM, NEAL LANGERMAN <neal**At_Symbol_Here**CHEMICAL-SAFETY.COM> wrote:

Paul:

You have brought this discussion full circle back to about 2-3 years ago. The message I tried to get across then and still repeat whenever given the opportunity: "The job of the safety professional is to help the research occur safely; never to impede progress."

 

Yes, there are times we need to say "slow down"; but our job is to figure out how the work can proceed.  While my academic roots were in the soil of the funding-starved PI, I recognize there are others much more qualified to evaluate the quality of most current research.

 

I hope 2019 continues the trend of graduate students pulling their mentors to include safety as part of their education.  The graduate-student centric Joint Safety Committees are a powerful mechanism.  I am pleased ACS/CHAS are working so hard to grow this concept.

 

nl

 

 

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