GOVERNMENT
OSHA's Proposed Exposure Rule For Labs Offers Much Flexibility Standard would allow labs to tailor protection from chemicals as appropriate to individual situation; comments generally are favorable David J. Hanson, C&EN Washington
The Occupational Safety & Health Administration has faced a dilemma for many years concerning how to regulate chemical exposures in the vastly different environments of industrial plants and laboratories. Last month, the agency moved to solve the problem by proposing a separate regulation that covers occupational exposures to toxic chemicals in laboratories (C&EN, Aug. 4, page 6.) Several times, beginning in the early 1970s as the agency proposed its first carcinogen standards, OSHA has heard arguments that lab workers cannot be regulated with the same rules that protect chemical plant workers. Basically, the argument went that lab workers are exposed to many different chemicals over time, often in very small amounts and for short periods of time. Plant workers handle the same substances all the time. Also, lab employees are in general better trained in understanding the risks associated with the materials they use. Consequently, the monitoring of exposures, administrative recordkeeping, medical surveillance, and training programs mandated in the OSHA regulations were said to obstruct or even prevent some research, particularly cancer research. In view of those considerations, in 1981 OSHA asked for recommendations for ways to regulate chemical exposures in labs that would
serve to protect worker health while not restricting research. The resulting comments led the agency to its proposed performance-oriented regulation. This regulation would be mandatory but would give a laboratory much flexibility in tailoring protection for employees from exposures to toxic chemicals as appropriate to the individual lab situation. The proposal contains several fundamental factors. First is that labs will have to keep exposure to certain chemicals below the OSHA permissible exposure levels (PELs), the same as required in industrial plants. How that is done, however, will be left up to the lab. It is expected that most labs will be able to keep the exposures low by ensuring safe work practices by employees and by keeping workers informed of the hazards associated with the chemicals they are using. The toxic chemicals
Beranek: pleased with the proposal
OSHA will be concerned with are the approximately 400 listed under its general industry standards and any others determined to be carcinogens by OSHA, the National Toxicology Program, or the International Agency for Research on Cancer. Any lab that handles even one chemical falling into those categories will be required to implement mandatory work practices to control exposure. How an individual lab meets those standards is to be set out in a written chemical hygiene plan. Every lab, with few exceptions, will be required to set up such a plan under the proposed regulation. According to OSHA, the plan must include several specific elements to ensure laboratory employee protection. Included in those elements are standard operating procedures for handling toxic substances appropriate to the particular lab and a set of criteria establishing under what conditions specific exposure control methods would have to be used. Because detailed monitoring of employee exposure to the many chemicals used in labs would be impossible, and indeed, the requirement for such monitoring in the industrial standard was the major argument for a separate laboratory rule, determining if an employee has been overexposed to a chemical is more subjective under the proposed regulation. The chemical hygiene plan is to include provisions for exposure evaluation and medical consultation for employees who "reasonably" believe they have been overexposed to a toxic substance. OSHA says that effective training programs in hazardous substances, also to be part of the chemical hygiene plan, is expected to enable employees to make informed decisions about their exposures. If a medAugust25, 1986 C&EN
17
Government
McKusick: lab safety has improved ical examination is done, the employer will have to get a written report from the physician and provide the employee with the opportunity to receive any medical care recommended. OSHA takes some care in separating problems that may come from using chemicals suspected of causing cancer from other, acute toxic effects. Exposure in labs to several chemicals that may be carcinogenic might result in increased risk because there may be an additive or even synergistic effect, OSHA says. The proposed regulation requires that carcinogenic substances be handled in regulated areas with access limited to employees who are aware of the hazards of the substance and set up containment devices, proper disposal practices, and protective clothing for handling the chemicals. The agency recommends using the special handling procedures for cancer-causing chemicals as outlined in the Department of Health & Human Services' National Institutes of Health Guidelines for the Laboratory Use of Chemical Carcinogens, and the National Academy of Sciences/National Research Council report "Prudent Practices for Handling Hazardous Chemicals in Laboratories." Other parts of the chemical hygiene plan in the proposed regulation include housekeeping-type procedures, such as having plans for 18
August 25, 1986 C&EN
cleanup of spills, proper posting of signs and labels, record-keeping requirements, and safe chemical distribution and storage. The plan would be expected to help labs tighten up procedures they are probably following anyway and help reduce employee exposure to chemicals. On the whole, the laboratory regulation follows a middle ground in its strictness. Of the more than 200 comments OSHA received regarding the proposal, about one third wanted no new regulations imposed on labs; one third wanted tougher, mandatory rules for worker protection, especially for carcinogens; and the rest believed that a mandatory protection program built around performance standards would be sufficient. Among those commenting on the proposed regulation was the American Chemical Society, which contributed its own survey of chemical laboratories and their practices that is cited often in OSHA's background discussions. The survey was instrumental in assuring OSHA that the conditions of working with chemicals in labs are so different from the situation in chemical plants that the same rules are inadequate. William Beranek Jr., currently head of the ACS Task Force on Occupational Health & Safety, says that OSHA has agreed with most of the ACS concerns. "We believe that the protection for workers should be tailored to the individual labs," Beranek says. "My feeling is that [the ACS task force] will be very pleased with the proposal. It is consistent with the recommendation we made. This has been a necessary problem to address and I think [OSHA has] taken good strides to a solution." ACS will review the proposed regulation and submit new comments that will be considered before it is made final. From a practical point of view, Beranek does not see any problems with compliance at the lab end. One problem that might arise is just how detailed a chemical hygiene plan the agency will require. A chemical safety officer or some other officer in a company will have to be put in charge of its writing, and some labs naturally will have better resources for this than others. Still, Beranek
is not too concerned. He says the agency has been flexible in how it interprets its written requirements under the hazards communication rule and would expect the same flexibility for the lab toxics plans. "Even going through the exercise of writing up a chemical hygiene plan is going to be very helpful," Beranek says. Still, among the various kinds of labs, he guesses that the toughest ones to get into compliance with the regulations would be the smaller university research labs where there are frequent personnel changes and very low levels of what could be called routine work. These also will handle the widest assortment of chemicals. At the other end, industrial labs will be able to comply more easily. That is partly because there will be someone that can be put in charge of the program who will be there for a long time. Industrial labs also may know more ahead of time what materials they are working with and have more resources to isolate hazardous chemicals from the rest of the workplace. That view also is held by Blaine C. McKusick, one of the authors of the NRC Prudent Practices report and presently retired after nearly 40 years at Du Pont. McKusick is pleased with the OSHA proposal, pointing out specifically that most large chemical companies and many universities have this kind of program already in place. "The situation is much better now than it was 15 years ago in labs," McKusick says. "The net effect of the publication of Prudent Practices is that lab safety has really improved." Still, he says, there are labs that have not made the effort to improve health and safety programs, thus the mandatory approach of OSHA is probably the best idea. OSHA will accept comments on the proposed regulation until Oct. 22. Unless there are some serious reservations about the effectiveness of the proposal, it likely will be finalized in very much like its present form early next year. The regulation would go into effect 90 days after publication in the Federal Register, and all laboratories would be required to have chemical hygiene plans in effect within a year. D
