• Question: Is health and safty laws getting strickeder and wouldthis make yuor job harder?

    Asked by cdtg to Andrew on 14 Jun 2010 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Andrew Maynard

      Andrew Maynard answered on 14 Jun 2010:

      Hi cdtg,

      Yes, health and safety laws are definitely getting stricter, but as I’m one of the people doing research on possible ways stuff might cause harm, this doesn’t affect me that much.

      But this is a really difficult issue – how do you draw the line between letting people do stuff that they find fun, interesting and that is possibly useful, and preventing from harming themselves and others? Health and safety is about preventing people from causing harm – to others as well as themselves. So that’s good – surely. But it’s a real pain when it stops you doing what you want.

      However, for most research there are ways of working safely with dangerous substances, and what the health and safety laws do is help you find the best way to work safely.

      (although sometimes it’s still a pain!)

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