Material Safety Data Sheets Eyed

Twenty years ago, the Occupational Safety & Health Administration began requiring companies that manufacture or market hazardous chemicals to prepare and issue material safety data sheets (MSDSs). While most users find that the now ubiquitous safety sheets provide essential information and are mostly helpful, many of these users also question the quality and quantity of that information.

For example, if you purchase deionized water for your lab, it might come with an MSDS, even though water is not considered a hazardous chemical. One study of 10 water MSDSs found a wide array of unusual information on them, such as the solubility of water in water; a recommendation to use protective gloves when handling; and advice to store the liquid in a cool, dry, well-ventilated area. For first aid when getting deionized water in the eyes, one sheet recommends, "Obtain medical attention in all cases." Another suggests, "Irrigate with water."

Although most chemists reviewing an MSDS for deionized water would ignore the nonsensical information, the safety sheets could be confusing to nontechnical users, such as emergency first responders or production workers in firms that simply follow chemical recipes to formulate their products. More seriously, poorly prepared MSDSs with inaccurate or contradictory information on hazardous chemicals have been cited as a contributing factor in several fatal U.S. chemical industry accidents.

In its response to mounting criticism, OSHA has undertaken several measures that are expected to improve the safety sheets. In the works are a new training program on how to prepare MSDSs properly and the creation of a quality-control mechanism. Separately, a "globally harmonized" hazard communication system with a safety sheet similar to an MSDS is being sponsored by the United Nations.

OSHA has indicated that oversight of MSDSs would be complicated and cumbersome and thus not practical. One problem is that there are 650,000 different chemicals in more than 3 million workplaces in the U.S., including farms, automobile repair shops, small chemical production facilities, and sprawling petrochemical complexes. In 2004, the agency carried out nearly 40,000 workplace inspections and issued more than 7,300 citations for violations of the Hazard Communication Standard, although the focus of the citations was in general not MSDS accuracy or content.

Another complicating issue is that chemical hazard communication in the U.S. is convoluted, with OSHA covering workplaces, the Department of Transportation regulating shipping, the Consumer Product Safety Commission regulating consumer products, and the Environmental Protection Agency covering pesticides. Each agency operates under different statutory mandates and has adopted different approaches to hazard communication requirements. Individual states also enforce compliance with their own standards, which must be at least as stringent as federal standards. States carry out more inspections than the federal government, however.

"IT IS CLEAR that users of hazardous chemicals cannot rely on MSDSs provided by suppliers without cross-checking," says Giora Agam, who operates the chemical and biotechnology consulting firm Pi₂Chim, in Beersheba, Israel. This means that process chemists, who often are the primary users of MSDSs in a chemical company, must take extra steps to account for the specific usage of materials and the conditions in place where they are used, he says.

Regardless of who writes an MSDS, it's the plant or site manager's responsibility to ensure the information is correct and to communicate it to workers, Agam emphasizes. The manager should issue standard operating procedures to include MSDSs along with additional relevant information. The operating procedures would then be incorporated into a computerized safety or environmental management system, if the company has one (C&EN, Oct. 25, 2004, page 45).

Agam shared his thoughts on MSDSs and described several studies on the quality of MSDSs, including the one on deionized water, in an editorial in the December issue of Organic Process Research & Development [8, 1042 (2004)]. In that issue, the journal published its annual special section on chemical safety, which includes a series of articles to provide an overview of safety issues of interest to process chemists and chemical engineers.

As a process chemist, Agam emphasizes that he's a customer and not a supplier of safety information. "I think there is a systematic problem with MSDSs, and I wanted to raise a public discussion on, or at least more awareness of, the limitations of MSDSs," he tells C&EN. "No MSDS is better than a wrong MSDS."

OPR&D Editor Trevor Laird also touches on MSDSs in his editorial on page 815 of the same issue. He mentions that the journal recently rejected a paper because it described a process that is considered unsafe. The process involved diisopropyl ether solvent, which can readily form a peroxide and is prone to violent explosion. Laird points out that an MSDS for diisopropyl ether should recommend that storage containers be checked for peroxides every three months after they are first opened. If peroxides are present, the solvent should be disposed of safely. However, many MSDSs may not describe or indicate the safe procedure. That information would have to be looked up in a reference book, he notes.

In March 2004, Carolyn W. Merritt, chairman of the U.S. Chemical Safety & Hazard Investigation Board, told a congressional committee that deficient MSDSs were a contributing factor in 10 of 19 major accidents the board had investigated. One of her chief concerns is that there's no hazard information on MSDSs about combustible dust, which was the cause of three accidents. "Improving the quality of hazard communication and material safety data sheets will help prevent major chemical accidents and should be an important goal of government agencies as well as the producers and users of hazardous materials," she noted.

MSDSs are a vital part of safety precautions in place to help protect chemists and other workers. Until about 25 years ago, information on chemicals in the workplace was often not provided to workers or was hidden from them by trade names or internal material codes. Pressured over time by worker unions and safety advocates, OSHA established its Hazard Communication Standard in November 1983 under the umbrella of the Occupational Safety & Health Act of 1970.

This "right-to-know" regulation, which went into full effect in 1986, requires chemical manufacturers and importers to assess the hazards of the chemicals they make or market. Companies also must prepare labels and MSDSs to convey physical and chemical hazard information, toxicity data if available, first aid or medical treatment information, and precautionary handling measures.

The hazard information must be communicated to downstream customers, and employers must provide their workers with labels and access to MSDSs for chemicals in their work area. Employers also must train their workers to properly handle the chemicals and maintain medical and chemical exposure records for employees for at least 30 years.

Guidance documents issued by OSHA are careful to point out that nonhazardous chemicals are not covered by the rule, and that MSDSs are not a risk assessment tool. Even so, one of the secondary uses of these has been to help downstream users select less hazardous chemicals to use in their products so they can make "green" claims.

OSHA notes that federal policy at the time the rule was created led it to forgo establishing a standard way to prepare the safety sheets or to indicate how detailed the information should be. In addition, OSHA has recused itself from shepherding the quality of MSDS content, placing the burden on the preparer. OSHA also doesn't compile MSDSs for a national database, although a number of universities, lab supply firms, and online companies have assembled large collections of MSDSs, some for free and others for purchase. In general, the agency reviews MSDS content only during an accident investigation or a plant inspection. But some sites that use hazardous chemicals are not regularly inspected (C&EN, Jan. 24, page 32).

Early studies on the effectiveness of MSDSs pointed out that the information can be hard for workers to understand, Agam notes in his editorial. It was clear that some improvement was needed. Since OSHA did not view this as its role, the American National Standards Institute (ANSI), a nonprofit organization that coordinates the U.S. voluntary standards system, developed a two-page, 16-part MSDS format in the early 1990s. OSHA has endorsed using the ANSI format, although it's not a requirement.

Still, more than half of MSDSs have missing or incorrect information, Agam points out. In one study of about 150 MSDSs, only 11% of the sheets were considered satisfactory in all the information details, he says. On the other hand, some MSDSs that don't follow the ANSI format may go on for many pages, sometimes including accurate but extraneous information.

A caveat is that most MSDSs come with the disclaimer that the information is "provided without any warranty." And with regard to issuing MSDSs for nonhazardous chemicals, some companies take time to issue MSDSs for every product they make or sell, even if most sections of the form are not applicable, to ward off "failure to warn" lawsuits.

Safety issues are not limited to industry. EPA has uncovered serious safety hazards and fined universities for their negligence in chemical storage and waste disposal. Consulting accurate MSDSs probably could prevent some of these violations. A potential cause for the university problems is that most federal regulations covering chemicals were designed for industrial settings, not college campuses.

Is anyone to blame for the lack of uniform and accurate MSDSs? That's a good question, agree several industry and government policy analysts asked by C&EN. The answer is probably no one in particular, because of the way MSDSs were established and the current lack of quality control. But there is consensus that the responsibility starts with the company that issues the MSDS.

The American Chemistry Council does not have a written policy or guidelines for MSDSs, even under its Responsible Care initiative, notes ACC Communications Director Kate B. McGloon. Interested parties should refer to the ANSI standards, she says. Many ACC members participate in the Society for Chemical Hazard Communication (SCHC), she adds, a nonprofit professional society that offers development courses devoted to preparing labels and MSDSs.

ACC also operates the Chemical Transportation Emergency Center, or CHEMTREC, which is a call center that provides 24-hour information to emergency responders dealing with hazardous materials incidents. CHEMTREC manages 5 million MSDSs and handles 100,000 calls annually, according to ACC.

SOME CRITICS have suggested OSHA has been "asleep at the wheel" in recent years. But in December 2002, the agency announced that it would begin reviewing the quality of MSDSs. Labor Secretary Elaine L. Chao noted at the time that the adequacy of MSDSs was "a long-standing concern to OSHA." In March 2004, OSHA issued its findings in a report titled "Hazard Communication in the 21st Century Workplace."

The report notes that, although the Hazard Communication Standard's successes are evident, "there are concerns regarding the quality of information disseminated ... in particular, whether information is consistently accurate on MSDSs." The report examines the causes for the inconsistencies and makes several recommendations that are currently being implemented.

One focal point for OSHA has been to develop new guidance documents on how to comply with the hazard communication requirements. These documents are in the process of being made public. Another point has been to establish an alliance with SCHC to create a short course on how to adequately prepare MSDSs. The alliance is also producing a checklist to be used by OSHA staff and the public to review MSDS content.

But perhaps the most important of the new OSHA efforts is its first attempt at developing an MSDS quality-control component. Total marshaling of MSDSs would be an impossible task, but to start, OSHA staff will choose 10 chemicals and identify critical information that should appear on an accurate MSDS, according to an OSHA spokesman. Compliance officers would use this information as they encounter these chemicals at work sites. When MSDSs are found that do not contain these critical elements, OSHA will notify the manufacturer of the deficiencies or inaccuracies. Manufacturers will be required to correct and update their MSDSs and report the changes to OSHA. Failure to respond or update the MSDSs could lead to a fine.

OSHA also is considering adoption of the Globally Harmonized System of Classification & Labeling of Chemicals as a long-term solution to improving hazard communication. This system was one of the suggestions made at the 1992 UN Conference on Environment & Development in Rio de Janeiro, also known as the Earth Summit. The system is touted as a mechanism for all countries, including those without sufficient resources, to provide protection for citizens and to participate in international trade. The chemical safety sheet under this classification is nearly identical to the ANSI standard, but the new system would standardize wording and convey information more consistently than current MSDSs.

The global system also is intended to harmonize regulatory activity by different agencies within countries. Each U.S. agency is at liberty to adopt the nonmandatory system, and the agencies now are at different stages in the adoption process. The system was officially adopted by the UN in 2002, and the goal is to have it fully operational by 2008. OSHA would need until then to incorporate the system into its existing framework, an agency spokesman tells C&EN.