> >Bob gave this paper at the BCCE at UNC in August and also at the ECRICE Conference in Barcelona in September, as well as in the UK.
>
While I understand the point of the paper from a chemical educator's point of view, I believe that it "buries the lead" by not mentioning the concept of risk assessment until his 8th point.

More specifically, the statement that "The issue now is that the MSDS loses its credibility amongst the experienced chemistry teachers; that can be dangerous and a complete disregard of the use of SDS is illegal" is true if the experienced teachers don't recognize that they are not the only audience for this information. There are many different people who may need to use a SDS for a chemical found in a laboratory besides the teacher, and the risk assessment for each stakeholder should only take the information on the SDS as a starting point. The experienced teachers need to understand not only the chemical aspects of lab safety, but the social context of this information as well.

I appreciate the article for its outline of the challenge of chemical safety information literacy, but am not sure that it is well-balanced in discussing how that challenge is best addressed.

Thanks for sharing it with the list, Dave.

- Ralph

Ralph Stuart, CIH, CCHO
Chemical Hygiene Officer
Keene State College

ralph.stuart**At_Symbol_Here**keene.edu

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