Letting it slide

Food in Lab

This is the sort of thing I looked for when I audited labs at the WVU Health Science center for OSHA and safety code violations. Do you watch NCIS? Do you remember seeing Abby, the lab tech, always has a big cup of soda/slurpee whatever that she drinks in the lab? And that Dr. Mallard sometimes is eating his lunch in the MORGUE (Ewww...)? These two violations alone would close a lab, lose Abby her job, or at the very least mean a fine and/or a visit from OSHA, if reported to them. It really is a BAD idea to eat or drink in a lab; labs have usually been in use for decades, with dozens of workers spattering who knows what where. Once you touch some chemicals, all that stands between you and death is not putting your finger in your mouth. Some chemicals will penetrate directly through unbroken skin and kill you long before help can be gotten; I used to routinely use such a chemical, called DFP, which is a protease inhibitor. I was very very careful with it, more even than with isotopes.

Anyway, I am very tired tonight, so this is a post only in so far as NaBloPoMo goes, so I don't miss a day. If it's boring, move along, nothing to see here...

Bumper sticker: "It's as bad as you think and they're out to get you."