UCLA Criminal Charges Focus Universities' Attention on Laboratory Safety

By Paul Basken

University laboratories in the United States have suffered nearly 120 explosions, fires, and chemical releases in the past decade, according to a federal tally. But until late last year, the number of criminal charges filed over lapses in laboratory safety was zero.

Frustrated safety experts see a connection between those two statistics. Universities and their researchers don't take lab safety seriously, the safety experts say, and nobody has really ever forced them to.

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