A few years ago, there had been three variations of the
chemical hazard symbol in use. One was a picture of a death's head, or skull and
crossbones. The other was a beaker. The last was a pair of beakers
with their necks crossed.
When NBC CTS was first created, it bothered
us not only that the chemical symbols differed so greatly in design from the
nuclear hazard and biological hazard symbols, but also that there was more than one
standard in use. It was for this reason that we constructed our own
chemical hazard symbol, as seen above. It has an atom-like look to it,
which is appropriate for chemicals.
Soon, the NBC Defense Officer at the Army
Office of the Surgeon General had adopted the symbol as the standard. Now,
throughout the Army, the new chemical hazard symbol can be seen in use from OTSG
slide presentations to NBC manual covers.
The symbol is available for your own
use on the downloads page. We only ask that you use the symbol in the
spirit it is intended - as a chemical hazard symbol - to avoid diluting its
meaning.