ExposureBlog

Recently, an attorney friend of mine was presented with a client who had apparently been exposed to a chemical found in a commercial product.  The label noted a few chemicals as active ingredients, but also claimed that 99% of the chem was inactive.  And unidentified.  Well, the regulations (such as they are) on material safety data sheets allow quite a bit of leeway regarding disclosure.  For example, if a company discovers that a very, very common and cheap chemical, (sugar, for example) has some really interesting and heretofore unknown attributes–and the company wants to sell it for whatever they can get for it—well, they SURE don’t want to blurt out the magic ingredient in a material safety data sheet.  And, OSHA, apparently, agreed.  Result: some MSDS sheets are not particularly helpful.  The company simply claims the magic chemical is “proprietary.”   And that’s what you might see on the MSDS.

During my days with OSHA I approached this problem like this, informing the employer that he could choose the easy way or the hard way. (a) Easy way (tell us what the ingredient is and if it’s no big deal, we’ll keep quiet about it). or (b) hard way (don’t tell us and we’ll analyze it and publish the results on a billboard somewhere.)

In my mind, it wasn’t an idle threat. All of the lab directors I knew were chemists who were really interested in finding out what chemicals made up a commercial product.  We all knew the protocol—take about 20 ml of the chemical, wash with chloroform, extract whatever comes off and run it through a gas chromatograph/mass spec.  Sooner than later we’d get a list of chemicals.

Now, one would expect that things have changed for the better since then, but unfortunately that may not be true.  Back to my attorney friend.

I suggested he find an American Industrial Hygiene Certified Lab to analyze the sample. Then, ask for a GC/Mass Spec analysis. Now a gas chromatograph has a number of different detectors, and, the judicial use of these detectors can determine what chemicals are involved.

So he took it to the lab in his hometown–a big lab, actually, that normally checks the water supply for this sizable Western city.  We expected to know the answer within days.  Didn’t happen.  Instead, apparently since the the lab had an EPA contract, it ran the samples using their Haz Waste protocol.

In other words, since the language was EPA/Haz Waste, then they ran the sample(s) using this protocol.  It came up with a lot of NDs (none detected).  I phoned the lab director and asked him why he ran a haz waste protocol on something that was clearly not haz waste. His response: “The lady wanted to know if there was anything hazardous in the sample.”  Here, the laboratory apparently confused “hazardous” with “hazardous waste.”  Error number one. 

I then asked why he didn’t check for any of the ingredients that were listed on the bottle (as a standard check). His reply: “No one asked me to do that.”

And yes, he still charged $900 to the attorney for his “work.”  During the 30 minute discussion with the lab director, I found that he was one of these guys who started talking before the question was completed.  No wonder he didn’t get it right.  He probably wasn’t listening to a thing his customer said to him.

He also had no idea what the AIHA certification was all about.  In fact, he had never heard of such a thing.

Bottom line, if you want to analyze a chemical, FIRST ask the lab if they are AIHA certified. Not all labs are. 

Next, ask if the director has a chemistry degree. 

Third, ask if he uses EXTRACTION METHODS before analyzing chemicals.

Actually, your best bet is to simply ask an Industrial Hygienist to vet the lab before you send them any samples or write them any checks.  Not all laboratories are created equal.  Some only look for the chemicals that happen to be in their protocol pack.  If the chem isn’t listed, don’t expect them to find it.  Or even look for it.  The really horrible thing about this is, this outfit analyzed the drinking water for the entire city. 

Argh.