Hazardous Aerosols in Health Building Laboratories

Health building laboratories probably have the widest range of hazards of any technological installation of similar size because, apart from the usual range of laboratory hazards of fire, gas cylinders, acids, etc., they pose distinct problems in the handling of dangerous aerosols or vapours which arise from incidence of bacteria and viruses, of dangerous chemicals (carcinogenic, explosive, combustible, corrosive) and of radioactive substances. In a way it is fortunate that the usual hospital laboratory does not carry these hazards at the highest levels. Thus bacterial and virus problems are not usually as serious as they are at a microbiological research station, except where special infectious nursing arrangements exist; the chemicals are not so seriously hazardous as are met in some chemical factories and the level of radioactivity handled and the way it is handled do not present the hazards of, say, a nuclear fuel processing plant.