I, of course, am in industry and not academia, but this was an interesting question. It does appear that there should be guidelines akin to CHP for undergraduate students in classes. it also appears to be a learning opportunity in chemical safety as well for the students. How does your CHP handle the issue of teratogenicity? In our company we work with an occupational medicine group, and in an emergency we would have sent along the MSDS to emergency responder. Therefore it seems the student can bring MSDS of the reagents to her physician, perhaps in conjunction with an occupational medical group, In addition, We have set procedures and the MSDS for each reagent in the procedure, and in addition we include a safety section which addresses PPE, limitations, etc to that procedure. This sounds like the same situation as for general chem labs,. Is it possible to incorporate this kind information in the lab instructions in order to standardize the protocol at Wittenberg? If the individual lab that uses a teratogen cannot be altered with alternative reagents, skipping that one does seem to be a reasonable alternative. As a parallel in industry, we would reassign the lab worker, Ujjvala (Vaiju) Bagal Specialist, Methods Development Phone: 01-912-964-9050 ext.53236 Fax: 01-912-966-5917 Email: Vaiju.Bagal**At_Symbol_Here**emdchemicals.com EMD Chemicals 110 EMD Blvd Savannah, GA 31407 Home: www.emdchemicals.com This message and any attachment(s) are confidential and may be privileged or otherwise protected from disclosure. If you are not the intended recipient, you must not copy this message or attachment(s) or disclose the content to any other person. If you have received this transmission in error, please notify the sender immediately and delete the message and any attachment from your system. EMD does not accept liability for any omissions or errors in this message which may arise as a result of E-Mail-transmission or for damages resulting from any unauthorized change of the content of this message and any attachment(s) thereto. EMD does not guarantee that this message is free of viruses and does not accept liability for any damages caused by any virus transmitted therewith. "David C. Finster"Sent by: DCHAS-L Discussion List 08/09/2010 02:54 PM Please respond to DCHAS-L Discussion List To DCHAS-L**At_Symbol_Here**LIST.UVM.EDU cc Subject [DCHAS-L] pregnant student in chemistry lab I am aware that a student who will be taking a general chemistry course this fall is pregnant. I am writing to the list to seek advice about how to best handle this circumstance (assuming that one of the options ? not taking the course ? is not a preferred option). (I have checked the D-CHAS archives, and other sources, and found no particularly helpful answers to this question. This is not really a CHP matter since the student is not an employee ? although we ordinarly use our CHP as the safety document for students, too.) So far as I know (but I can check this to be certain) none of the chemicals used in our general chemistry labs are teratogens. Thus, my initial suggested course of action is that the student participate in all of the labs experiments (using all of the PPE at all times that is recommended for all students.) We rarely use chemical hoods in this particular course since most of the chemicals we use present no significant inhalation risk. (We use hoods when there is an inhalation risk.) If there is some chemical that is, or is suspected to be, a teratogen, I would advise the student to skip that lab (and have the instructor determine how to do this without any penalty to the student). The pathway suggested above seems reasonable and prudent to me. However, since we live in a world where the consideration of worst-case scenarios is wise and legally prudent, it seems to me that having the student consult with her physician (with a complete list of chemicals ?in hand?) and having the physician and/or student ?sign off? on some reasonable statement in advance seems smart. Since I would not expect a physician to be familiar with the teratogenic effects of ?all chemicals?, I would also present the physician with a detailed list of the known or suspected effects of each chemical (extracted from TOXNET) with regard to being handled while pregnant. The advice and experience of the D-CHAS group is welcome. Dave David C. Finster Professor of Chemistry University Chemical Hygiene Officer Department of Chemistry Wittenberg University dfinster**At_Symbol_Here**wittenberg.edu This message and any attachment are confidential and may be privileged or o therwise protected from disclosure. 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