bradzilla posted:

Weapons of mass destruction contracted by the federal government to the lowest bidder

Platystemon posted:

quote:

[CA] I work in a small business (cleanroom lab) which is extremely unsafe. What can I do? (self.legaladvice)

I want to put together a presentation for my coworkers explaining about basic lab and chemical safety, since there is no safety program at all or any person designated to care about safety. I want to know what is actually the law before I go and make an rear end out of myself, and what I am allowed to put in the presentation, and what I am allowed to do beyond that to address this problem.

Basically all I want to know is what CFRs, OSHA standards etc apply to a small biotech company of about 50 people which handles moderately dangerous experimental chemicals for a non-commercial purpose. I want to know what specifically they must do with regard to things like safety showers, eye washes, PPE training and chemical storage and disposal and what the legal consequences are if they don't. If you're interested in more detail keep reading.

We are a contract facility and make experimental drugs. Most of it has no established safety data because it's new.

None of my colleagues are chemists except for me and they don't know about basic things like not to put drug substances down the drain, not to store acids and bases together, not to mix bleach and ammonia and so on. I can't tell if my boss actually doesn't know that safety is the law or if he doesn't care or is only pretending. He seems to think that because we're a small startup and there are fewer than 10 people on our particular team, the laws about safety don't apply to us. There are way more than 10 at the company.

Some of the things wrong include:

People pour things down the drain. Concentrated acids and bases, drug substances, solvents other than water. We have a bin that says 'to be incinerated', but I've repeatedly asked what company does hazardous waste disposal for us to find out if it goes anywhere legitimate and haven't been told.

They put rags and gloves and bags that are contaminated heavily with up to 99.9% pure drug substances in the regular trash.

They wear lovely safety glasses that don't cover the sides of your eyes when handling fuming sulfuric acid, sporklenz (which says on the packet causes irreversible eye damage), CIP 100, quarternary ammonium. They wash the ceiling and look up at it while they do it.

There is no eyewash. I have been the most vocal about this for months and nothing is happening. There was one when I got there a year ago, but it was not hooked up to water utility and the water inside had not been changed since 2008. My boss said it's fine since they'd been putting disinfectant tablets in. The manufacturer says water needs to be changed weekly. Within the last month it finally got serviced and then they WALLED IT OFF with a thin plastic temporary wall to do construction. A manager has since instructed myself and 4 new employees that we juggernaut through that wall if we get something in our eyes. As soon as he was gone I told them gently caress that and to use the purified water hose we have in the lab.

There is no safety shower. There is a locking bathroom that has a sign saying 'emergency safety shower', but inside is a regular domestic shower. Between the point of use of chemicals and the shower, there are 4 doors one of which locks. It's our only bathroom and is in nearly constant use.

There is no audible fire alarm in the cleanroom. We have never done a drill.

The safety data sheets (SDS) are not provided to us. I've obtained them before by asking repeatedly. They are not stored hard copy or digitally. The only info about the drugs we are provided is their code names. I have been going out of my way to find out what they are on my own and going around and warning everyone verbally if they're dangerous.

Once I found out at the last minute that a drug substance was 99.8% pure botulinum toxin serotype H. I ran around telling everyone it was the most acutely fatal neurotoxin known to man and we had to be careful. I did math and found out we had enough on hand to kill thousands of people. I told them for gently caress's sake not to spill any and let it dry and turn to aerosolized powder. They were flippant so I made a safety sheet about it and distributed it. I got reprimanded for it because they perceived it as me forging a document from the client company. They were going to let us handle it with paper dusk masks and gloves outside the fume hood. I made such a fuss they gave us full-face respirators to handle it. Because of how big a scene I made over that, absolutely none of it went down the drain or into the air, I forced them to neutralize it properly and contain it and dispose of everything it touched properly, but to this day I am being mocked playfully by upper management about it as if I were being ridiculous.

The respirators had cartridges on them that had expired in 2014. No one was trained on how to use the respirators. No one knew how to do seal tests on the respirators. No one had been medically examined. People had beards and glasses that compromised the seal.

https://www.reddit.com/r/legaladvice/comments/94tte3/ca_i_work_in_a_small_business_cleanroom_lab_which/

ate all the Oreos posted:

Also unlike the US and Russia, Britain's submarines have the full capability and authority to fire their nuclear missiles without any sort of transmitted code or order, they're just trusted not to because Britain is so incredibly good at training their military and life aboard the subs is definitely not a comical shitshow of mismanagement and underfunding

Sestze posted:

safety precautions are for losers

https://www.reddit.com/r/legaladvice/comments/94tte3/ca_i_work_in_a_small_business_cleanroom_lab_which/

bradzilla posted:

Weapons of mass destruction contracted by the federal government to the lowest bidder

ate all the Oreos posted:

The US does a mock nuclear war training exercise every year or two or something, where someone pretends to be the president (because if the actual president did it it would reveal how they would act) and even in the 100% simulated, completely consequence-free training exercise nobody has ever been able to bring themselves to order the counterattack

Platystemon posted:

That’s not Comic Sans.

ate all the Oreos posted:

Also unlike the US and Russia, Britain's submarines have the full capability and authority to fire their nuclear missiles without any sort of transmitted code or order, they're just trusted not to because Britain is so incredibly good at training their military and life aboard the subs is definitely not a comical shitshow of mismanagement and underfunding

Armani Glasses posted:

This is exactly what Capitalism wants, to ignore the terrifying messages in place of font warfare.

Darth Walrus posted:

While government cuts have probably been less than kind to the UK’s submarine fleet, the only comical shitshow in that ‘report’ was the author himself. He was a hysterical, paranoid idiot who spent a couple of days on the job before running away screaming after finding out that, among other things, crew on Vanguard-class boats live in the missile rooms (which is where the actual official quarters are, because the missile tubes are gigantic metal columns that take up about a third of the boat), and that the gate guards didn’t check his pass so often once they recognised his face. He then went into hiding under the assumption that the government would assassinate him for sharing these great and terrible secrets with the world.

Zzulu posted:

It's not like competence matters

Once the first few nukes start flying, the world as we know it will end no matter where they end up

Pirate Radar posted:

For instance, if they all accidentally fly up and hit the North Pole, the Earth will be knocked out of its orbit and spiral down into the Sun.

JeremoudCorbynejad posted:

Armani Glasses posted:

https://twitter.com/publiclibnews/status/1026813279765766144


Some wonderful inspiration from a local library.

Armani Glasses posted:

https://twitter.com/publiclibnews/status/1026813279765766144


Some wonderful inspiration from a local library.

SEX BURRITO posted:

It’s a Stephen Hawking quote. By ‘work’ I don’t think he necessarily meant some crappy 9-5 job, rather that you should never give up on your life’s work that you’re passionate about. Makes sense for a library.

Murray Mantoinette posted:

Yeah and now he's dead

steinrokkan posted:

lol, the idea that you should find a purpose and structure in life isn't that controversial, dude

steinrokkan posted:

lol, the idea that you should find a purpose and structure in life isn't that controversial, dude

Strudel Man posted:

Is there a source for this, because it doesn't seem very credible that no one would be willing to act as ordered when they know there will be no actual harm to it.

Pound_Coin posted:

https://twitter.com/OxfordWorker/status/1027086465338105856

PostNouveau posted:

The continued existence of QR codes at all outside of ticket-taking is a weird capitalism quirk. I think I maybe scanned one in my lifetime, to test out the QR code app that I downloaded. I've certainly never seen anyone else scanning them.

But some class of marketing person somewhere added "QR codes" to their toolkit a decade ago, and they're still peddling the same bullshits about them to upper management, who have no idea how the rabble lives so you can lie to them at will about how to market to the rabble.

Cythereal posted:

https://twitter.com/MattBruenig/status/1026936173091082242

Zeppelin Insanity posted:

There was also that time they did a nuclear ICBM test targeted at Africa that actually flew at Florida.

PostNouveau posted:

The continued existence of QR codes at all outside of ticket-taking is a weird capitalism quirk. I think I maybe scanned one in my lifetime, to test out the QR code app that I downloaded. I've certainly never seen anyone else scanning them.

But some class of marketing person somewhere added "QR codes" to their toolkit a decade ago, and they're still peddling the same bullshits about them to upper management, who have no idea how the rabble lives so you can lie to them at will about how to market to the rabble.

bradzilla posted:

Weapons of mass destruction contracted by the federal government to the lowest bidder