I think the real bottom line here is how do we educate the people who are in 
the administration that unsafe situations exist?
For example...I worked in sales for a time and saw all kinds of labs, some 
good and some really bad. A research lab that was in a portable building out 
in the back forty was one of the worst. At about 50 feet from the closed door 
to the lab you were hit by a blast of fumes. You can imagine what it was like 
inside the lab. Leaky valves or something on the old processor allowed the 
fumes to escape whether it was being used or not.  When it really got bad the 
tech opened the door to allow the room to vent to the outside - this allowed 
bugs and other nasties to enter the room. They didn't have money in the 
budget for a new processor and she couldn't get the bosses to approve a 
service call on an old processor so she gave up and just lived with it. On 
another occasion, this same lab spent beaucoup bucks on a fancy imaging 
system and had a couple thousand left over - they came to this tech and told 
her to buy an automatic stainer for the $2-3K they had remaining. What a joke!
Somehow I think it is our job to make these people aware of our needs whether 
it be safety, equipment or even what we should wear but do you risk being 
thought of as a real pain or classified as a troublemaker when you are just 
trying to do a good job? 
Now that I am back to working in a lab I have been able to go to my boss and 
explain things like the need for ventillation over the grossing area or 
better chairs in the microtomy area. I am so lucky to have a boss who 
understood the problems and saw to it that with what little money we had, 
some of it was allocated to me for these things. Of course we need more 
people like him out there - should I clone him?
Just my 2 cents,
Andi

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