>After some thought, I think perhaps it is the characterization of a work (or other) environment as ‰??safe‰?? or ‰??unsafe.‰?? We‰??ve all spent a lot of time talking about moving to a cognitive model for safety that operates on a ‰??risk continuum,‰?? where there are shades of ‰??relatively un/safe‰?? between the extremes.

The challenge of moving to a "risk continuum" approach, of course, is identifying the boundary between an "acceptable" and "unacceptable" risk and the fact that this identification can vary widely between individuals. I am thinking here of the people climbing Mount Everest who have to step over bodies of people who died doing the same thing, rather than, perhaps, turning back.

> >It‰??s not so much that ‰??unstable‰?? environments necessarily require additional controls; what they really need is additional information.

I'm not sure that additional information applies to the risks associated with the Mt Everest example. And, as you mentioned, the heroic approach to chemistry often accepts risks similar to that of those climbers who keep going. A similar story to that of dimethyl mercury occurred in 100 years later, in 1960. See "Two Laboratory Deaths, and Keeping Organic Solvents Dry" https://doi.org/10.1002/anie.201803276 for more information. This story is a demonstration of the interesting interplay between safety experiences and scientific practice.

What I take away from this discussion is that an individual's risk assessment in itself is not a decision-making process. The information gathered needs to be set in the context of a variety of other factors which include ethical considerations. Last week, I happened to find a helpful description of key ethical criteria in STEM fields at "Seven Step Method for Ethical Decision-Making" https://www.onlineethics.org/Resources/88557.aspx

This is why I think that that statement of the third ACS core value as "Professionalism, Safety, and Ethics" is so powerful - it reflects the larger context of safety issues in a helpful way.

Thanks for your help in thinking through the issues this posting raises.

- Ralph

Ralph Stuart, CIH, CCHO
Environmental Safety Manager
Keene State College
603 358-2859

ralph.stuart**At_Symbol_Here**keene.edu

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