The third annual OSHA Safe + Sound Week is being held August 12-18, 2019. This national event is intended to promote the value of workplace health and safety programs. Employers are encouraged to hold events and activities that highlight the elements of their health and safety program during this week.
Did you know that violations related to the OSHA Hazard Communication standard ranked #2 in the OSHA top 10 list for most frequently cited violations in 2018? Common citations included not having a written program or safety data sheets (SDS) for all chemicals, lack of employee training, and deficiencies related to secondary container labels.
OSHA has been involved with a long-term project to be aligned with the Globally Harmonized System (GHS) of classifying chemical hazards and providing labels and safety data sheets for hazardous chemicals.
The use of fresh blood drawn from company employees is sometimes required when timelines in experiments are too tight to use an outside blood supply vendor. That said, it is considered to be preferable from a safety standpoint, and often a logistical one as well, that an outside blood supply vendor be used rather than establishing an in-house program.
Many of Safety Partners’ clients hold Controlled Substances Registrations (Researcher) for the research use of controlled substances. In Massachusetts, a controlled substance includes all drugs regulated by the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) in schedules I through V as well as Schedule VI, which is defined as all prescription drugs, which are not included in any other schedule.
Local recombinant DNA ordinances, including those of Boston, Cambridge, and Lexington to name a few, require compliance with the NIH Guidelines for Recombinant DNA Molecules (originally published in1986) as well as revisions and amendments to the Guidelines.
Proposed changes to the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority (MWRA) Sewer Use Regulations (360 CMR 10.000) were published in April 2019 and a public hearing on the changes was held this week on May 13.
Would you know what to do if an employee at your company had a needlestick injury or other exposure incident? Other routes of exposure to biological material include accidents with other types of sharps as well as exposure to the mucous membranes of the eyes, nose, mouth, and non-intact skin.
After six years of sharing safety tips, we are excited to add more Safety Partners experts to our blog team. Starting next week, our Quality, Research, and Training (QRT) team members will contribute to our weekly posts.
Today will be my last post to the Safety Partners blog as I transition into a new phase! I want to thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule to read our blog, and I hope that I have been able to share some valuable information to support your EH&S program.
OSHA’s Bloodborne Pathogen Standard, 29 CFR 1910.1030, applies to all occupational exposure to human blood or other potentially infectious material as defined in the standard. When implementing a bloodborne pathogen program, the standard needs to be reviewed in detail to ensure full compliance is achieved.
Be sure to reconcile the Safety Data Sheets at your facility to verify that you have an SDS for all hazardous chemicals present on site.
