DailyDirt: Deadly Lab Accidents
from the urls-we-dig-up dept
Working in a scientific field can be really difficult sometimes. And sometimes it can even be life-threatening. The multitude of “CSI” TV shows don’t generally portray how dangerous a laboratory can be in reality, so here are some sobering links to remind us about the importance of lab safety.
- Plague still infects over 2,000 people each year, but usually it doesn’t kill people at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. However, Malcolm Casadaban discovered (the hard way) that European descendants with hemochromatosis are more susceptible to lab strains of live plague bacteria. [url]
- Chemistry professor Karen Wetterhahn’s death from mercury poisoning demonstrates that even experts in the field of heavy metals aren’t safe from lab mishaps. Wetterhahn was wearing gloves, just not the right kind of gloves… [url]
- Working alone in a machine shop at night is not a good idea. Biology and chemistry labs are not the only dangerous places for students to be. [url]
- To find more stuff on forensic-related topics, check out what’s currently in the StumbleUpon archives. [url]
By the way, StumbleUpon can recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.
Comments on “DailyDirt: Deadly Lab Accidents”
Being humans, no matter what precautions are taken, laboratory accidents do happen occasionally.
Re: Re:
yes, and don’t get me wrong, working in a lab is statistically a lot safer than, say, working in a coal mine or as a police officer at a crime scene….
Mercury poisoning
Let’s be clear, and discontinue the ignorant fear of mercury. The researcher died of exposure to METHYLATED MERCURY!
Sure, mercury can be bad; even dangerous – but the extreme events listed were all due to COMPOUNDS of mercury; so, for example, mercury in vaccines and tooth fillings, while banned now, and rightfully so, are NOT the villains they are assumed
to be by people who should know to “speak when you know something about what you are saying!”
Re: Mercury poisoning
Gene,
Well… if you’re going to get all technical, then vaccines usually contain a compound of mercury, too. Thiomersal isn’t the same as dimethylmercury, but it’s still a COMPOUND of mercury…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thiomersal
The mercury in tooth fillings is usually an amalgam with silver, so that’s not a compound, but a metal-metal alloy.
But in any case, elemental mercury in the environment can be methylated by bacteria… and that’s how mercury ultimately poisons people.
http://www.epa.gov/mercury/exposure.htm#1