Implications of a hazardous profession
A special report headed “How dangerous is chemistry?” is published in the 1 June issue of Nature. It was prompted by an explosion
on 24 March at
the National Institute of Higher Learning in Chemistry in the French town of
Mulhouse in which a photochemist, Dominique Burget, was killed in an incident
that was said to resemble an earthquake. At the same time a 19-year-old woman
student working next door was severely injured. Some 400 square metres of the
buildings were destroyed and rebuilding is estimated to take at least three years.
However, such serious incidents are rare in practice. This one is attributed
to the spontaneous explosion of residues of ethylene stored in a pressure vessel
and not connected with the experimental procedures being carried out nearby.
Chemistry, it may be argued, has been saddled with an undeserved reputation for
being dangerous to study. It has been claimed that stories of accidents in laboratories
tend to perpetuate out-of-date myths.
Occupational health measures from the 1970s have brought many changes. Chemicals
are supplied to academic laboratories with a list of potential risks and appropriate
safety precautions. Outdated practices such as eating one’s lunch at the
laboratory bench, pipetting reagents by mouth and washing hands with potential
carcinogens are largely no longer practised. Better analytical techniques mean
that much smaller quantities of chemicals are handled and the risks from discarded
wastes reduced substantially.
It is surprisingly difficult, critics say, to find national statistics regarding
scientific accidents in the UK and US. Universities are required to report only
accidents that result in serious health effects, although the director of health
and safety at Cambridge University has commented that having a national register
of accidents would be immensely useful. Most accidents on campus involve trips
and falls like those in other environments.
Chemistry involves more practical work than other disciplines, with an increase
in risks from broken glass, for example. It is found that academic laboratories
are more dangerous than those in industry, with an accident rate 10–50
times higher. Sometimes the fact that students may work overnight in such places
is a factor. Moreover, the laboratories tend to be too crowded and this, with
an increased risk from spills and discarded reagents, is a major factor.
A timely comment appears in a letter published in Chemistry World for June regarding
the current debate over the unpopularity of chemistry as a subject of study.
The writer says that the demise of home chemistry may play a part. He, like many,
was given a small chemistry set as a present in youth, which intrigued him. He
widened his researches with the help of his local pharmacist, who supplied a
range of chemicals and simple apparatus. All his work was done in his bedroom
at home, and chemicals were exchanged with school friends.
There must be many who enjoyed the home research in their schooldays and were
led to study chemistry as an academic subject as a consequence. In the era of
the nanny state, simple experiments have been frowned upon despite the fact that
few serious incidents occurred in the bedroom laboratories of more relaxed times.
Small wonder that the numbers of professional chemists have shrunk and
that university chemistry departments are struggling to survive.
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The
Pharmaceutical Journal
With the passing of the years and the changes in the earth's climate, we see fewer butterflies than we used to do. This may be a sad reflection on the human passion for trying to eliminate anything that cannot be turned into a source of money, I fear.