School Kitchens Flunk Health Inspections

By: Helena Bottemiller

FoodSafetyNews.com

Oct 14, 2010

More than half of the school kitchens in the Philadelphia School District failed the last round of health inspections, according to state records analyzed by Philadelphia Daily News.

The worst offenders appeared to be charter schools, which were 66 percent out of compliance, compared with the 53 percent failure rate across the district.  According to The Daily News, some schools on the list had as 20 significant violations, ranging from "mouse feces found on cooking utensils to food being stored next to chemicals."

Hazardous Chemical Misused in a School

By DAVID SEIFMAN City Hall Bureau Chief nypost.com
October 16, 2010

NY Post: G.N. Miller 

Two students created a scare at a middle school in Brooklyn by pouring a potentially dangerous chemical into the hands of unsuspecting classmates -- leading to a hazmat response that included cops and firefighters, officials disclosed yesterday.

Six students from Seth Low IS 96 in Bensonhurst were taken to Coney Island Hospital as a precaution.

Several others were taken to emergency rooms by their parents after Thursday's incident.

School Lockdown After Mercury Exposure

By: Maureen Magee and Hailey Persinger

Published: October 8, 2010

San Diego — Toler and Bay Park elementary schools were taken off lock down status at around 4:30 p.m.

UPDATE 4 p.m. - Mission Bay High School has been taken off lock down status and all students were sent home at about 3:25 p.m., said the San Diego Fire Department. Lock downs for Bay Park and Toler elementary schools are still in effect.

UPDATE 2:40 p.m. - About 140 students have been isolated and are being screened for mercury contamination at Mission Bay High School after officials found that they'd entered classrooms with dangerous levels of the substance.

Ph.D. Program Rankings Lack Safety Considerations

By Jyllian Kemsley • Posted in Academia, Education, In the News, Safety Culture

September 28th, 2010

The National Research Council’s assessment of graduate programs is out today. To quote from my colleague Carmen Drahl’s story, “The rankings cover doctoral programs in disciplines ranging from aerospace engineering to theater. Those for chemistry alone evaluate over 150 departments on each of 20 criteria, which fall under the broader categories of research activity, student support and outcomes, and diversity.” The goal is to provide data that can be used to evaluate the quality of programs. But it seems to me that the survey is woefully lacking on the occupational health and safety front.

On the student support front, here are some of the related questions on

Science Lab Incident Sickens Students

By Shawn Raymundo

Salt River Fire Paramedics rushed on to campus after two students in the Natural Science building suffered from breathing complications while working with pure Ethanol on Tuesday Sept. 21.

The three-hour lab, taught by Professor Anne Healy, had been using pure Ethanol, also known as ethyl alcohol or drinking alcohol, when the two girls began to feel nauseous. Classmate, Diane Hannan, said, "they turned red and blush and couldn't breathe."

Early speculation, from administration, over the cause of the incident was

Mercury Brought into Classroom by Student

By Linda Bock TELEGRAM; GAZETTE STAFF
lbock@telegram.com

WORCESTER — Federal environmental officials told school and health officials this morning that the clean-up of the Grafton Elementary Street School is going smoothly, addressing the potentially hazardous mercury that was brought into a classroom by a student on Tuesday.

“That's really good news,” said Worcester schools Chief Academic Officer Jeffrey J. Mulqueen, who was at the school throughout the morning.  A specialized top-to-bottom cleaning of the building is ongoing.

A sixth-grade student brought nearly a pint of mercury to Grafton Street School to show a teacher on Tuesday, and that prompted an environmental investigation.

Despite the optimistic news

University Student Hurt in Explosion

Waltham, MA
Wicked Local Waltham

WALTHAM — A Brandeis University graduate student sustained first- and second-degree burns and lacerations to his face in a chemical explosion at the school’s science building Thursday morning, said Fire Chief Richard Cardillo.

The student, a male who has not yet been identified, was rushed to Mass. General Hospital with non-life-threatening injuries following the explosion at 10:49 a.m., Cardillo said.

He was released at 5 p.m., said Brandeis spokesman Andrew Gully.

The student is a candidate for a Ph.D. in chemistry, said Gully, who declined to name him due to privacy issues.

“He was doing work for his graduate degree, and something obviously went wrong, because the chemicals he was using don’t normally cause