What is happening in the chemical world is that the safety people are taking control. Everything is dumbing down to the point where the safety of a facility is being judged on the basis of what the least qualified deem as safe.
I just received an MSDS for the Buchner funnel (!$#%!!) I recently purchased from Aldrich. The MSDS lists zero’s for Health, Flammability, and Reactivity both for HMIS and NFPA ratings. Thank heavens for that. It does recommend “suitable storage” and that it be kept “tightly closed”. It is silent, though, on the matter of repeatedly jabbing the pointy end into your eye.
I gotta get out of the chemical business if this is where it is going. Administrative controls on common laboratory activity requires management by a dedicated staff member in order to maintain a favorable paper trail and stay in compliance with the ever growing web of regulation. OSHA, EPA, Homeland Security, as well as state and local agencies who want to inspect this or that or place tax stamps on your balances.
How did civilization get this far along without the legions of officious ninnies who want to exert control over everything you do? Chemical labs have inherent hazards, depending on the work that is being done in them. The cost of achieving de minimus risk for the lowest common denominator is quite high. Risk ends up being transferred to countries who reside on the other side of the curve- those who have little care for people.
Lamentations on Chemistry 
The Nanny State arrives in the chem lab.
Must you flush with water for 15 minutes if you touch it? Be taken out to fresh air if you sniff it? Wear steel-toed shoes lest you drop it? Does it come in Brown and Black?
Consumer items do not require an MSDS. The simple solution is to offer all your stuff for public purchase… at which time the War on Drugs will bust a cap up your butt. Possess a beaker, go to jail – New York State – you goddamned drug cooker.
This would be the same War on Drugs that cannot find hundreds of square miles of brightly colored Afghani poppy fields, thereby bunging the narrow end of the funnel. Innocent people generally don’t shoot back.
As an engineer in a base metals refinery, I am frequently frustrated by this phenomenon. For example, we are not allowed to bring any chemical (substance?) into our plant with approvals being obtained by our environment/health/safety committee that I believe sits semi-monthly. This restrictions include items like a silicone sealants, paint, cleaning compounds, or simple metal salts that are not registered with them by name and brand.
Seems like a good way to prevent undesirable process contamination? Bear in mind that there are no chemists or engineers sitting on this committee and that most of these chemicals are for laboratory use only. It really is incredible.
If you hve silicone you have silicone oil, and that is a nightmare. Its low surface energy has it creeping everywhere. Introduce it anywhere in a lab and mass spec will find it in all your samples. Your high vac line will show it. The joke about using Crisco for an oil bath is in fact a pretty good solution, aside from flammability.
There should never be factual input to a Safety Committee. As with Homeowner’s Assocations, they exist to terrorize and exact fees for the privilege. They are the purest expression of professional management: The confluence of overwhelming ignorance with overweening arrogance pursuing process without product. Consider a Safety Committee to be a semi-sentient CFR. Six months after a stupid statement is written you are forever screwed, plus heinous penalties for non-compliance.