Safety first?

I returned from a week at a conference to learn that there'd been an "incident" with my co-op student.

She's a nice kid. Really bright, really eager and really careful in the lab. So you can imagine my surprise when I got an email while I was away telling me that she had burned herself.

Apparently the story is that she reached across someone and passed her arm near the open flame of a bunsen burner. It's something I've done million times myself. It never even really gets that warm, and I've certainly never burned myself. But when she did it, her disposable lab coat caught fire. It melted to her arm and that's what caused the actual burn.

Let me explain this again. We don't get permanent lab coats for temporary employees. We give them thin disposable ones. I always knew they didn't do a good job of protecting you from spills and things. You know, what you'd expect a lab coat to do.

Permanent lab coats are also flame retardant. Not only is this not true of the temporary ones, but it appears they are more flammable than regular fabric or human flesh or, possibly, some low grade fireworks.

Who makes these things?