Dear Editor,

We were dismayed to find variations of the word “accident” printed 22 times in the article “Risks linked to accidental inoculation of humans with veterinary vaccines: a 7-year prospective study.” Meyer et al. report 266 cases of “accidental inoculations of humans with veterinary vaccines” in an 8-year period at their poison control center. We believe the actual number of accidental inoculations was zero. Rather, it seems that there were 266 unintentional and preventable inoculations.

A tenet of toxicological surveillance is to identify public health trends and respond to them proactively, rather than react to exposures as if such occurrences are a fact of life. We assert that occupational exposures to veterinary vaccines, which can pose risk to human workers, should not be viewed as accidents but rather as failures of workplace safety mechanisms.

Lacking from Meyer et al.’s discussion is comment on alternative practices that reduce the threat of unintentional inoculation. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (author’s emphasis) endorses a veterinary standard through the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health that reads “proper handling and restraint of animals decrease the possibility of staff receiving bites, scratches, needlesticks, and other animal-related injuries” and goes on to encourage training and processes that mitigate the risk of exposure. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration of the United States Department of Labor publishes additional standards to promote safety while using hazardous drugs and pneumatic injectors.

Curiously, Meyer et al. note the high speed of poultry vaccination makes it a highly prone to “accidents.” Yet other high-paced, high-volume tasks are done with a near-zero incident rate of unintentional harm, largely through the development of standards and regulations. Given current knowledge of root cause analysis, ergonomics, automation, and design thinking, the word “accident” is an inappropriate choice that distracts from the responsibility of toxicologists to seek solutions to reduce unintentional exposures to harmful substances through advocating for policy and legislation that promotes worker safety.

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.