As the years went by, what started as a skinny 25-40 page document has gradually bloated to over 150 pages before anyone realized it. Let's face it: your chemical hygiene plan (CHP) is overweight. And the problem isn't just cosmetic. When many people see a policy...

Photo: Associated Press On March 15, an explosion at a Tri-Chem Industries chemical plant in Cresson, Texas left one person dead and two injured. Days later, hazardous chemicals were still burning. What chemicals exactly have burned into the air since the explosion?...

Apparently, not dying isn't enough to convince people to care about their own safety. Believe me, it's not. For 40 years, I've been trying. Still, in every country, in every lab I visit, I find health and safety personnel struggling with the same question: How do you...

Marie Curie is famous for her ground-breaking work on radioactivity, which is also what killed her. Curie died of aplastic anemia, believed to be caused by prolonged exposure to radiation. Usually, we write it off as "back then, nobody understood the dangers of...

Even with a well-trained staff, a careless moment in a laboratory could lead to an accident. The challenge confronting many teachers, lab managers and chemical hygiene officers is how to raise the level of safety awareness among everyone in the lab at all times. One...

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It happened again. A dozen kids sat on the floor in a Texas church school recently, watching a teacher show them a "fun" science experiment. The teacher took some boric acid, put it in a beaker, then poured in methanol from a jug. A swirling rainbow-like flame jumped...