Material Safety Data SheetMSDS

The Material Safety Data Sheet — MSDS — is the legacy name for the chemical safety document the worker, the first responder, and the industrial hygienist read, the one the pre-GHS regimes used and the one the GHS transition replaced. The OSHA HazCom 2012 revision adopted the GHS, renamed the document the Safety Data Sheet — SDS — and standardised it to the 16-section format, so the worker reads the same sections in the same order across every chemical on the site. The legacy MSDS is the document a facility that has not updated its inventory still holds, and the regulation requires the update to the SDS format on the schedule the HazCom revision set.

The legacy MSDS differed from the SDS in two ways that mattered: the format was not standardised, so every manufacturer laid out the sections differently and the worker could not find the same information in the same place, and the content was less consistent, because the hazard classification and the precautionary statements were the judgement of the manufacturer rather than the GHS framework. The facility that still holds the MSDS is the facility that has not finished the HazCom-2012 update, and the QEHS system that holds the chemical inventory has to flag the legacy sheet and pull the current SDS, because the first responder who needs the toxicology in an emergency needs the 16-section document, not the legacy one. See SDS, GHS, and HazCom.