OPRD: A Call for Papers to Openly Discuss Chemical Incidents

From the inbox: 

...We believe that ACS Chemical Health & Safety is well positioned to “fill the gaps” to help the scientific community learn from the experiences of others by sharing our experiences in a Virtual Special Issue (VSI) that highlights chemical incidents. In VSIs, manuscripts are initially published in a regular issue shortly after they are accepted for publication. Once all VSI papers have been accepted, they are collected onto a single webpage, giving additional exposure to each author’s work. Our goal in collating this VSI is to promote an open and informative environment where incidents and near misses can be shared by researchers, without blame or shame for those involved, to educate and prevent others from experiencing similar consequences. 

...We can start by normalizing the discussion of safety incidents where we openly discuss chemical incidents, missing safety information, ineffective risk assessments, and even our own mistakes. To that end, we seek submissions related to incidents and near misses involving the following:

• unexpected hazards from chemicals, processes, and equipment
• organizational reviews of repeated incidents
• chronic and acute exposure to chemicals
• proactive and reactive responses to natural disasters
• mental health outcomes related to incidents, near misses, or general safety culture
• other experiences and challenges in transitioning from a blame culture to a just culture

Seems like a good thing to do. Full call here. Best wishes to those interested.