History of Laser Safety

LASER is an acronym for Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation.  The laser was developed in 1960 by Theodore Maiman.  Since its inception the applications have been growing steadily.  The laser is used in industrial, medical, research, entertainment, and military applications.  There isn’t a place that we can go where a laser is not being used.  For example, when we go to the supermarket and pay for our products a laser is used to scan the bar code.  However, in the early 60’s as lasers grew more powerful workplace injuries began to increase.  Naturally laser safety became important to employers using this technology.  This forced individual organizations and government agencies to begin developing safety guidelines for employee safety.  The military was one of the first to do this followed by research laboratories and industrial organizations.  By 1969 The U.S. Department of Labor began to get complaints of these injuries.  In 1969 the U.S. Department of Labor approached the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) and requested that they work on developing a consensus standard that employers could use as a guideline to mitigate laser hazards.  ANSI agreed and formed the Standards Committee Z-136.  Over time the Standards Committee Z-136 and their subcommittees worked diligently to write the first Safe Use of Lasers standard.  The first document, American National Standard for Safe Use of Lasers was approved in April of 1973 and published in October of that year.  Since then, there have been many more revisions of the American National Standard for Safe Use of Lasers.   In addition, a whole series of ANSI Z136 standards that are specific to various industries have been published.  The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) in section 1910.3(b)(1) recognizes ANSI as one of the major consensus standards for the United States of America.  Compliance with these standards is important.