Criminal Prosecution—A Jumpstart for Laboratory Safety Accountability?

摘要

Until recently, academic institutions and Principal Investigators (Pis) maintained a de-facto immunity from criminal prosecution for worker injuries and deaths attributed to unsafe laboratory practices. This status quo changed in 2011 when a state prosecutor filed felony charges for statutory and regulatory safety violations against the Regents of a state university system and a tenured professor. This unprecedented action was the first time a University Board of Regents and a professor at a university were jointly charged with felony violations associated with laboratory procedures that resulted in the death of a laboratory worker. This article presents sentinel factors associated with the prosecution and settlement of the prosecution, with a discussion of resulting implications for academic institutions/institutes and Pis.