Definitions

Chemical Hygiene and Safety Officer: employee who is designated by the department, and who is qualified by training or experience, to provide technical guidance in the development and implementation of the provisions of the ISAT Chemical/Biochemical Hygiene & Laboratory Equipment Safety Plan.

Designated Area: area which may be used for work with "select carcinogens," reproductive toxins or substances which have a high degree of acute toxicity. A designated area may be the entire laboratory, an area of a laboratory or a device such as a laboratory hood.

Employee/Student: an individual employed in a laboratory workplace, or a student of the ISAT program, who may be exposed to the hazards associated with working with chemicals in the course of his/her assignments, classroom or research duties.

Hazardous Chemical: chemical for which there is statistically significant evidence based on at least one study conducted in accordance with established scientific principles that acute and chronic health effects may occur in exposed persons. The term Health Hazard includes chemicals which are carcinogens, toxic or highly toxic agents, reproductive toxins, irritants, corrosives, sensitizers (allergens), hepatoxins, nephrotoxins, neurotoxins, agents which act on the hematopoietic systems, and agents which damage the lungs, skin, eyes, or mucous membranes. Hazardous Waste may be defined as substances which meet the EPA RCRA (1976) proposal which meets criteria of toxicity, ignitability, corrosiveness, or reactivity.

High Acute Toxicity Chemical: chemical which may be fatal or cause damage to target organs as a result of a single exposure or exposures of short duration.

Laboratory: workplace where relatively small quantities of hazardous chemicals are used on a non-production basis.

Laboratory Fume Hood: five-sided enclosure with a moveable sash or fixed partial enclosed on the remaining side. It is constructed and maintained to draw air from the laboratory and to prevent or minimize the escape of air contaminants into the laboratory. It allows chemical manipulations to be conducted in the enclosure without insertion of any portion of the body other than hands and arms.

Medical Consultation: a consultation which takes place between an employee (or student, or visitor to an ISAT laboratory) and a licensed physician for the purpose of determining what medical examinations or procedures, if any, are appropriate in cases where a significant exposure to a hazardous chemical may have taken place.

Oxidizer: a chemical other than a blasting agent or explosive that initiates or promotes combustion in other materials, thereby causing fire either of itself or through the release of oxygen or other gases.

Reproductive Toxin: chemicals which affect human reproductive capabilities including chromosomal damage (mutations) and effects on fetuses (teratogenesis).

Robot: a reprogrammable, multifunctional, mechanical manipulator that typically employs one or more means of power: electromechanical, hydraulic, pr pneumatic. Industrial robots have been used chiefly for spray painting, spot-welding, and transfer and assembly tasks. A robot performs its tasks in a physical area known as the robot operating work envelope. This work envelope is the volume swept by all possible programmable robot movements, and includes the area where work is performed by robot tooling.

Select Carcinogen: substance which meets one of these criteria:

1. Regulated by OSHA as a carcinogen.
   
   
2. Listed under the category "known to be a carcinogen" in the Annual Report on Carcinogens published by the National Toxicology Program (NTP).
   
   
3. Listed under Group 1 (carcinogenic to humans) by the International Agency for Research on Cancer Monographs (IARC).
   
   
4. Listed in either Group 2A or 2B in IARC or under the category "reasonably anticipated to be carcinogens" by the NTP and causes statistically significant tumor incidence in experimental animals.

Visitor: a person, not employed by ISAT and not a student of the ISAT program, who enters an ISAT chemical (e.g., environmental, biotechnical) , instrumentation, analytical, or manufacturing laboratory for any reason.