NEWS OF THE WEEK
LAB WORKER SAFETY: Hearings begin on proposed rules The Occupational Safety & Health Administration is scheduled to hold three days of hearings this week on its proposed rules for protecting the health and safety of lab workers. The stakes are high and the hearings are likely to be lively. Whatever course OSHA takes will have a big effect on the way labs are managed in the future. OSHA's proposed regulations were made public last July, and reflect OSHA's new position that, in regard to safety conditions, labs are different from manufacturing plants (C&EN, Aug. 4, 1986, page 6). Its current proposal would establish a performance-based standard where each laboratory would follow its own individual plan for chemical health and safety practices, except for handling carcinogens. OSHA estimates a total of more than 1 million laboratory workers are scattered among more than 74,000 laboratories in the U.S. OSHA expects to hear from groups either strongly or mildly opposed
to the standard as it is written. Some want the strict specification standards that already apply to industry to apply to laboratory workers as well. In contrast, many laboratory personnel argue that any restrictions—such as those prescribed for carcinogens—on materials and procedures would inhibit research and that implementing the proposal as it stands would be very expensive. The carcinogen provisions of the proposed rule will be the most bothersome, predicts Lillie Clark, OSHA health scientist and project officer for the lab standard, based on the comments she has heard so far. "Whether the provisions we have included [for handling carcinogens] should apply to the substances we have identified will be a controversial point," Clark says. At issue is that the proposal lumps together any suspected, probable, or weak carcinogen with potent human carcinogens. All would require special procedures, worker training, and use in a "regulated area" that would
Proposed OSHA regulations would affect more than 74,000 laboratories 4
March 23, 1987 C&EN
restrict access to employees who are aware of the alleged risk. Testimony disagreeing with the agency's stand is expected to counter that the definition of a carcinogen should be loosened to allow for the degree of a chemical's toxicity, the small amounts used in the lab, and the imaginable routes of exposure. On the other hand, witnesses such as the AFL-CIO and the United Steel Workers of America are expected to argue that OSHA's already approved cancer policy requires the agency to set specific controls on any and all suspected carcinogens, regardless of conditions. How OSHA handles this contradiction is one of the key issues of the proposed regulations. Several other sections of the proposal are also likely to be challenged. One of these involves the training of laboratory employees to recognize and handle hazardous materials properly. OSHA has exempted laboratories from the training programs required in its Hazard Communication Rule, maintaining that the technical training lab workers receive combined with adequate information about a chemical's hazard is sufficient. A few types of labs are also being exempted from the standards altogether, including veterinary, dental, and group health laboratories because of the small amounts of toxic chemicals used. This also will be contested. The labor organizations and citizens groups, such as Public Citizen, that want strict standards for chemicals in labs believe they can be enforced only with an adequate air monitoring program, similar to that used in industry. Measurement ôf the permissible exposure levels of hazardous chemicals would have to be below OSHA standards or increased medical surveillance of lab
workers would be required. Others planning to testify, including Standard Oil Co. and the American Chemical Society, hold that monitoring the myriad chemicals often used in labs is not technically possible at this time. Also, the short, often infrequent use of the chemicals does not warrant routine medical checks. Under the proposal, a lab employee can request a medical examination if it's believed that he or she has had excess exposure to a hazardous chemical. About 16 presentations scheduled to be given at this week's hearings will be heard by a panel of OSHA officials, including Clark. She says that OSHA expects to issue the final regulation on laboratory exposures in late fall. G
United Catalysts sued over dispersant patents NL Chemicals has filed two suits against United Catalysts (UC) of Louisville, alleging in one action that UC has infringed on NL patents, and in the second that UC has misappropriated confidential information. Robert Maddox, an attorney representing UC, says that company has not infringed any NL patents and does not know the basis of the suits since the companies have not yet gone through the discovery period. He suggests that the suit may be a competitive ploy on the part of NL. The first complaint by NL, filed in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Kentucky, alleges that UC's product Thixogel DSS, a printing ink viscosity enhancer, infringes patents protecting a similar NL Chemicals' product Bentone 128. The second complaint, filed in the Circuit Court for Jefferson County, Kentucky, alleges that UC misappropriated and exploited NL's confidential proprietary information for its own commercial advantage. Commenting on the suits, NL president Fred W. Montanari says, "The complaints, taken together, allege a pattern of unfair business practices." In the patent infringement com-
plaint, NL claims that UC violated three patents. Those patents are U.S. 4,105,378, granted Aug. 8, 1978, entitled "Organophilic clay having enhanced dispersibility"; U.S. 4,193,806, granted March 18, 1980, entitled "Viscosity increasing additive for printing inks"; and U.S. 4,287,086, granted Sept. 1, 1981, entitled "Viscous organic systems containing an organophilic clay gellant without an organic dispersant therfor." The patent complaint seeks a preliminary and permanent injunction against further patent infringements in addition to an unspecified monetary award for damages plus court costs. In the second suit, NL claims that UC agents, including former NL employees, "infiltrated NL Chemicals' premises, files, or the premises or files of licensed companies with which NL Chemicals has express confidentiality agreements. In doing so, UC has misappropriated the intellectual property of NL Chemicals and converted this confidential information to its own use and benefit." NL's second suit seeks payment from UC of actual damages, punitive damages, an injunction requiring the return of allegedly stolen documents, an injunction prohibiting UC from disclosing NL's proprietary information, as well as attorney and court costs. D
Herrington: initiatives must be taken
day, or 33% of U.S. oil consumption, to 8 million to 10 million bbl per day and 50% of total U.S. petroleum consumption by the 1990s. This means, according to Herrington, that "even with continued conservation and efficiency and substantial contributions from other energy resources, like coal, nuclear energy, and renewables, our economic and energy security is inextricably tied to the fate and fortune of our domestic petroleum industry through this century." The report lays out several options for rescuing the "devastated" U.S. petroleum industry but makes no specific recommendations. One option that was considered and ILS. urged to reduce rejected was an oil import fee, which oil imports dependence Herrington characterized as presenting appealing benefits at first glance. "The suddenness and severity of the It would clearly increase domestic oil market collapse has devastated oil production. But he concluded significant segments of the U.S. pe- the "cure would be worse than the troleum industry Initiatives must disease." According to the report, a be taken to strengthen the U.S. oil $10-per-bbl fee on imported oil and gas industry and to reduce our would reduce U.S. gross national growing dependence on insecure product about $30 billion to $45 bilimported oil," declared Energy Sec- lion per year, cause a one-time inretary John S. Herrington last week. flationary effect of two or three perThe occasion was the release of centage points, add about 120,000 the results of a six-month study, jobs in the oil industry, but cost requested by President Reagan, of 400,000 jobs in other sectors of the all aspects of U.S. energy supply economy. and demand and their implications Henry Sauer, manager of the for national security. The report, Chemical Manufacturers Associa"Energy Security," projects that U.S. tion's special energy advisory group, oil imports could rise from the 1986 points out that the chemical indusaverage of 5.3 million barrels per try is very much opposed to an oil March 23, 1987 C&EN
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