Laboratory safety culture: Summary of the chemical education research and practice - Safety in chemistry education panel discussion at the 46th Midwest and 39th Great Lakes Joint Regional American Chemical Society Meeting, St. Louis, Missouri, on October

The panel discussion and audience comments on laboratory safety during the 46th Midwest and 39th Great Lakes Joint Regional American Chemical Society (ACS) Meeting in St. Louis, Missouri, are summarized as a starting point for further discussions on improving laboratory safety in college and university research and teaching laboratories. All attendees and panelists agreed that laboratory safety must be an on-going high priority and that there was strong merit in developing a banding approach to classifying the chemical hazard risk in laboratories based on the type and quantity of chemicals used in a laboratory, analogous to the Biosafety Level risk approach used by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and National Institutes of Health (NIH) Office of Biotechnology Activities (OBA). The panel members and attendees believed that the U.S. Chemical Safety Board (CSB) should work with ACS, environmental health and safety professionals, chemistry faculty representatives, college and university administration representatives, and other professional societies to not only develop chemical hazard risk assessment guidance, but also to support improvement of management systems at all levels of academic institutions (and granting and regulatory agencies) to improve safety.