Handling HIV Safely In The Laboratory

Safe laboratory handling of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) presents paradoxical extremes to lab chiefs: The odds that a lab worker will become infected with HIV on the job are extremely low, according to studies sponsored by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta; but experience indicates that the consequences of infection are almost always fatal. Even noting the minority scientific view that HIV is not the cause of the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS),

Written byCaren Potter

| 6 min read

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--C.P.

The challenge in the laboratory, then, is to control an occupational risk that is serious--but unlikely to occur. As Chris Carlson, acting biosafety officer at the University of California, Berkeley, says, "You have to find a balance between following good lab techniques and not getting hysterical about what you are doing."

This balance is not something an individual lab has to work out on its own. The federal government has stepped in with a regulation called the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) Bloodborne Pathogen Standard. This is a federal law (Code of Federal Regulations 1910.1030) that went into effect in March 1992. The "OSHA standard," as it is often called, spells out ways in which an employer must protect employees from occupational exposure to bloodborne pathogens such as HIV and hepatitis B.

The OSHA bloodborne pathogen standard covers a broad spectrum of lab practices--including personal protective gear, containment ...

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