The SDS simply tries to be too many things to too many people. I have one from PPG for "100% water" that seriously advises that if you get any on you, you should rinse it for 15 minutes in running water! I have another one for sucrose that calls for full Level A containment suits to clean up a sugar spill, which might actually make sense at a transport accident where there's sugar dust everywhere, but not for general lab use. (Actually, firefighting turnout gear would be more appropriate for the transport incident, since the main risk would be a dust explosion.) Seeing even one of those stupid types of SDS notations will turn a student off to the SDS as a reasonable source of information. 

Additionally, SDSs sometimes omit information essential to laboratory use of a chemical. The notation "use appropriate gloves" is particularly maddening to me when I read it, although I do get that each individual glove model has different properties, and even the same material may not resist a chemical in the same manner. I've also seen SDSs (from a major lab chemical manufacturer) that omitted the fact that Pd/C hydrogenation catalyst is spontaneously flammable if you start to let it dry out, particularly when used.

So perhaps we need, as a profession, to starting thinking about "what information do students need in lab" (and "in senior design courses" for chemical engineers), and establish some standards for what should be covered in such a chemical information document. The SDS is not serving us well. I'm not sure training on "how to read a SDS" really solves the above problems.

Regards,

Dan Kuespert