Francie:

If a company sends you a chemical, they HAVE TO send an MSDS to you or your
safety department; I believe that's now a federal regulation.  To ease some of
the frustrations, try the web.  A good place to start is
http://www.ilpi.com/msds/index.chtml

They list some MSDS and all kinds of places where you can get them off the
web.  There are also some specific sites that are very good for MSDS
information, which I can pass along at your request.

Sigma Chemical [my former employer] has always been very good at general
customer service, especially with providing safety information, particularly
MSDS' for chemical products that they sell.

Hope this helps overcome the roadblocks!

Peter
--
Peter A. Takes, Ph.D., RAC
Director, Clinical & Regulatory Affairs
STEREOTAXIS, Inc.
Ph. 1-314-615-6964; Pager: 841-9351
ptakes@stereotaxis.wustl.edu

Francie Gallery wrote:

> I need to vent...
> has anyone had nearly a WEEKS worth of phone calls/faxes back and forth to
> a company to try to get MSDS information sent on prepared chemicals/stains
> that you have ordered or you are interested in ordering (pending the MSDS
> safely/disposal information)?  I have been told that I have to provide a
> list of information regarding the product including its name (OK), catalog
> number (OK), lot number (?) and expiration date (?!? - if the item's
> expired, they won't send an MSDS because it shouldn't be on our shelves,
> anyway)...or I 'could just "fax the original packing slip" in order to
> receive an MSDS' for it.  And if I want an MSDS for a product we haven't
> ordered, it's not available, unless we order the product, first.  I don't
> understand why some of these companies don't list their MSDS information on
> their websites...I would be glad to retrieve it, myself if I could only get
> access.  This has been a major frustration this whole week.  Do folks have
> a favorite company that they purchase staining chemicals from that they
> find particularly "user friendly"?  Is it me, or have computers and
> technology replaced plain old "common sense" and "going the extra mile" for
> customer-relations" sake?  Looking forward to the weekend!!!  Deep breaths,
> meditation, relaxing music.   ~Francie~
>
> FGALLERY@neurobio.sunysb.edu
>
> Department of Histology, Suffolk County Medical Examiner's Office,
> Hauppague, NY
> Department of Neurobiology and Behavior, SUNY at Stony Brook, Stony Brook,
> NY