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    <title>Charges Dismissed Against Professor Over Lab Fire</title>
    <dc:date>2018-09-17T11:55:14+00:00</dc:date>
    <link>http://www.canyon-news.com/charges-dismissed-against-professor-over-lab-fire/83451</link>
    <dc:creator>dchas</dc:creator><description><![CDATA[WESTWOOD— On Tuesday, September 11, the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office announced that criminal charges against UCLA professor Patrick Harran were dismissed in the death of a laboratory assistant during a fire. On December 29, 2008, a lab accident led to the death of 23-year-old Sheri Sangji, who died as a result of a plastic syringe breaking down in her hands while she was transferring t-butyl lithium. The syringe discharged a chemical compound that ignites when exposed to oxygen which caused her synthetic sweater to catch fire. Complications from the second and third degree burns led to her death two weeks later.

UCLA took responsibility for the state of the laboratory where the accident occurred, Harran, her chemistry professor, was charged along with the regents on three counts of willfully breaching occupational health and safety requirements. In 2014,  in a statement to the court, Harran said that he was “ultimately responsible for the safety of personnel in my laboratory.”

Signaling their support for Harran, UCLA stated that it was Sangji’s choice not to wear the lab coat that could have protected her from.

UCLA and Harran’s lawyer, Thomas O’Brien said, “While we all wish this terrible tragedy had not occurred, there is simply no reasonable explanation for this criminal prosecution-and it’s been flawed from the start.” His lawyers stated that he did not break any laws because it was UCLA that was Sangji’s employer, not Harran.

The felony charges were dropped in 2012 after University of California regents promised to increase safety training and create an environmental law scholarship in the victim’s name. A deferred-prosecution agreement was reached in 2014, requiring Harran to volunteer for 800 hours, pay $10,000 to the Grossman Burn Center, and develop and teach a course for organic chemistry to prepare high school students for organic chemistry at the collegiate level. He spoke with incoming students about the importance of laboratory safety.

The agreement was due to end next June, but Judge George Lomeli of the Los Angeles Supreme Court ruled on Thursday, September 13 that Harran fulfilled the terms and dismissed the case against him nine months earlier. While Sangji’s family disapproves of the early dismissal, Harran continues to teach at UCLA.]]></description>
<dc:subject>us_CA laboratory follow-up death butyllithium illegal</dc:subject>
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<item rdf:about="http://news.asiaone.com/news/asia/china-uni-student-killed-chemistry-lab-blast">
    <title>China uni student killed in chemistry lab blast, AsiaOne Asia News</title>
    <dc:date>2015-12-20T14:04:54+00:00</dc:date>
    <link>http://news.asiaone.com/news/asia/china-uni-student-killed-chemistry-lab-blast</link>
    <dc:creator>dchas</dc:creator><description><![CDATA[A postdoctoral student was killed by a chemical explosion in a laboratory at Tsinghua University in Beijing on Friday morning.

The blast occurred on the second floor of Ho Tim Building, where graduate and postdoctoral students from Department of Chemistry conduct research.

"I heard a loud sound while I was in the dormitory, and I later saw black smoke coming from the building," a student surnamed Chen told Beijing News.

A teacher at the scene told The Mirror on condition of anonymity that the blast victim was Meng Xiangjian, 32, who was working with Tert-butyl lithium, a highly flammable compound that spontaneously burns upon exposure to air.

All the other students and faculty members in the lab building were safely evacuated after the explosion.

A strong odour lingered in the air hours after the fire was put out in the afternoon.

Min Guisen, a sophomore chemistry major at the university, said: "We have strict guidelines and standard operating procedures for every experiment we conducted in class. We conduct our experiments under the guidance of either a professor or a professor's research assistant."

Min said that hazardous chemicals are carefully stored in the building and cannot be used without permit.

]]></description>
<dc:subject>China laboratory explosion death butyllithium flammables</dc:subject>
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<item rdf:about="http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/2015/08/sheri-sangji-sister-funding-lab-safety">
    <title>Tie funding to lab safety, urges Sheri Sangji's sister</title>
    <dc:date>2015-08-20T14:36:14+00:00</dc:date>
    <link>http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/2015/08/sheri-sangji-sister-funding-lab-safety</link>
    <dc:creator>dchas</dc:creator><description><![CDATA[The American Chemical Society (ACS) and its members are being pressed to speak out against poor safety conditions in US academic labs, and to lobby the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to consider researchers' safety records when allocating funding. The call comes from the sister of the late Sheri Sangji, a 23-year-old research assistant at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) who died in January 2009 from injuries sustained during a dangerous lab experiment.
Sangji was a new hire who suffered third-degree burns to almost half of her body when working unsupervised with t-butyl lithium in the organic chemistry lab of Patrick Harran. She had been using a 60ml plastic syringe with a 1.5 inch needle on the end that was too short to reach to the bottom of the bottle containing the pyrophoric solution, and there was an open flask of hexanes nearby. The material caught fire when the plunger somehow came out of the barrel, and Sangji was not wearing a lab coat. Her family argued that she had received improper training, equipment, and supervision, and that she was carrying out Harran’s irresponsible orders.

‘Notably absent from this diverse group asking for justice and change are the academic scientists,’ the victim’s sister, medical doctor Naveen Sangji, told a session at the 250th ACS National Meeting & Exposition at Boston, US on 17 August. ]]></description>
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<item rdf:about="http://cen.acs.org/articles/92/web/2014/10/UC-Spent-Nearly-45-Million.html">
    <title>UC Spent Nearly $4.5 Million To Defend Lab Death Case</title>
    <dc:date>2014-10-28T10:45:48+00:00</dc:date>
    <link>http://cen.acs.org/articles/92/web/2014/10/UC-Spent-Nearly-45-Million.html</link>
    <dc:creator>dchas</dc:creator><description><![CDATA[The University of California paid nearly $4.5 million to outside law firms to defend itself and UC Los Angeles chemistry professor Patrick Harran from felony charges of labor code violations relating to the death of a staff researcher.
The numbers were released by the UC Office of the President in response to a public records request filed by C&EN.
Researcher Sheharbano (Sheri) Sangji was using a syringe to transfer tert-butyllithium, which ignites spontaneously in air, when the plunger came out of the syringe barrel. Sangji was not wearing a flame-resistant lab coat, and her clothes caught fire. She died from her injuries on Jan. 16, 2009. She was 23 years old and had received her bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Pomona College in May 2008.
The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office filed charges against UC and Harran on Dec. 27, 2011. The charges cited failure to correct unsafe workplace conditions and procedures in a timely manner, failure to require work-appropriate clothing and personal protective equipment, and failure to provide chemical safety training to employees.
]]></description>
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<item rdf:about="http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2012/01/03/ucla-faces-criminal-charges-lab-accident">
    <title>Inside Higher Ed: UCLA faces criminal charges for lab accident</title>
    <dc:date>2012-01-03T12:50:57+00:00</dc:date>
    <link>http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2012/01/03/ucla-faces-criminal-charges-lab-accident</link>
    <dc:creator>dchas</dc:creator><description><![CDATA[Now, a new development in the case is likely to reinvigorate the training and safety discussion not just at UCLA, but at any college or university where chemical work is performed: prosecutors last week filed felony charges against the UC regents and the chemistry professor who oversaw the lab, Patrick Harran, marking what researchers believe is the first criminal indictment stemming from an accident in the history of American academe.
The charges, filed by the Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office days before the statute of limitations was set to expire, allege that the regents and Harran violated state codes mandating employee training on handling hazardous chemicals and minimizing risk of exposure, as well as requirements for proper staff safeguards and clothing. Sangji was wearing a synthetic sweater, not a protective lab coat, which caught fire and melted when the syringe she was using to transfer t-butyl lithium -- a chemical that ignites when exposed to air -- fell apart. Harran faces up to 4 1/2 years in prison, and UCLA could be fined up to $1.5 million for each of the three counts, all of which target both the professor and the regents.]]></description>
<dc:subject>laboratory fire response butyllithium follow-up</dc:subject>
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<item rdf:about="http://cen.acs.org/articles/89/web/2011/12/Charges-Brought-UCLA-Researchers-Death.html?">
    <title>C&amp;EN: Charges Brought In UCLA Researcher’s Death</title>
    <dc:date>2011-12-29T18:15:07+00:00</dc:date>
    <link>http://cen.acs.org/articles/89/web/2011/12/Charges-Brought-UCLA-Researchers-Death.html?</link>
    <dc:creator>dchas</dc:creator><description><![CDATA[The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office filed charges against the University of California and UC Los Angeles chemistry professor Patrick Harran on Dec. 27, 2011, for felony violations of California labor laws in the death of a staff research assistant three years ago.
Sheharbano (Sheri) Sangji, 23, died on Jan. 16, 2009, from injuries sustained in a fire 18 days earlier in a UCLA chemistry laboratory. Working with tert-butyllithium, which ignites spontaneously in air, she was drawing the chemical from a bottle into a syringe when the plunger came out of the syringe barrel (C&EN, Aug. 3, 2009, page 29). Sangji was not wearing a lab coat, and the chemical splashed onto her clothes and set them on fire. Sangji was burned on her torso, arms, and hands.]]></description>
<dc:subject>us_CA laboratory fire death butyllithium follow-up</dc:subject>
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<item rdf:about="http://blogs.nature.com/news/2011/12/chemistry-professor-faces-criminal-charges-after-researcher’s-death.html">
    <title>Nature News Blog: Chemistry professor faces criminal charges after researcher’s death</title>
    <dc:date>2011-12-29T18:07:07+00:00</dc:date>
    <link>http://blogs.nature.com/news/2011/12/chemistry-professor-faces-criminal-charges-after-researcher’s-death.html</link>
    <dc:creator>dchas</dc:creator><description><![CDATA[Three years after a young chemistry researcher died following a lab fire at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), her supervisor, the organic chemist Patrick Harran, and the University of California now both face criminal charges. Health and safety experts think that it is the first instance of criminal prosecution over an accident in a US academic laboratory.

On 27 December, the Los Angeles District Attorney charged Harran and the regents of the UC system with three counts each of “willful violation of an occupational health and safety standard causing the death of an employee”. [Felony filing, pdf].  An arrest warrant has been issued for Harran, whose lawyer told the LA Times that he will surrender to authorities. He faces up to 4.5 years in prison if convicted, an attorney spokesperson told the paper,  while UCLA could be fined up to $1.5 million on each count.  In a statement, UCLA said it “intends to mount a vigorous defense against the outrageous charges”.
...
The accident triggered calls to improve academia’s safety standards not just at UCLA, but across the United States. But as Nature discussed in an article on laboratory safety after Yale undergraduate Michele Dufault died in April 2011, there’s little evidence that Sangji’s death has shifted the behaviour of bench scientists or laboratory heads, outside of UCLA.

The LA District Attorney’s legal action could shake up that attitude. “I think this is a game-changer. It will significantly affect how people think about their responsibilities now that it’s clear there’s the possibility of going to jail,” says Jim Kaufman, president of the Laboratory Safety Institute in Natick, Massachusetts.

Concerns surrounding prosecution have been a powerful incentive for change in the United Kingdom, where around 25 years ago Sussex University, in Brighton, was prosecuted for negligence after an explosion in a chemistry laboratory shot a piece of metal into a student’s abdomen. (The student later recovered). Tom Welton, a chemist at Imperial College London, told Nature that the episode had a profound effect on safety standards in Britain.

UCLA’s statement notes that an earlier investigation by the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health (which led to fines) found “no wilful violations on the part of UCLA”. The university called the district attorney’s decision to press charges yesterday “truly baffling”; “the facts provide absolutely no basis for the appalling allegation of criminal conduct,” it said. UCLA would not comment beyond its statement.
]]></description>
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    <title>LSUPD investigating hazardous chemical spill at Choppin Hall</title>
    <dc:date>2011-05-19T11:39:53+00:00</dc:date>
    <link>http://www.lsureveille.com/lsupd-investigating-hazardous-chemical-spill-at-choppin-hall-1.2576530</link>
    <dc:creator>dchas</dc:creator><description><![CDATA[LSUPD and the Baton Rouge Fire Department Hazardous Materials Division are investigating a hazardous spill at Choppin Hall, according to Sgt. Blake Tabor, LSUPD spokesman.

Tabor said LSUPD believes a University student was conducting an authorized experiment on the seventh floor when a hazardous substance fell or leaked.

A University email identified the substance as N-Butyllithium.

Tabor said no injuries were reported.

The building was evacuated following the spill. Tabor said he does not know when the building will be reopened.]]></description>
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