MIT incident

["Sim Shanks" <shankss@odrge.odr.georgetown.edu>]

NRC Says Radiation Poisoning of MIT Researher Was Not Accidental
By Christopher B. Daly   CAMBRIDGE Mass., Oct.25, 1995,  Washington Post

     The radiation poisoning of a researcher at the Massachusetts Institute 
of Technology was not an accident, federal authorities concluded today as 
they prepared to leave the campus.
     Although one phase of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's 
investigation is over, many unanswered questions remain about the incident 
which occurred last August.
     Among the key issues unresolved are who committed the poisoning and 
why.
     The MIT incident also bears uncanny, if superficial, similarities 
to a case at the National Institutes of Health.  In both cases, medical 
researchers of Chinese background were contaminated with similar doses of 
the same chemical.
     The MIT case involves a post-doctoral researcher, Yuqing Li, who works 
at the school's Center for Cancer Research in a lab run by Susunu Tonegawa, 
who won the Nobel Prize in physiology in 1967.
     Li was not present today when the NRC's incident investigation team 
conducted its final hearing at MIT.  A separate NRC team remains on campus 
to explore the issue of whether Li deliberately ingested the radioactive 
chemical or whether he was poisoned by someone else.  When that team has 
enough information, it will refer the matter to the justice Department for 
a decision on whether to prosecute, according to NRC Diani Screnci.
   John Glenn, the head of the incident team, said investigators concluded 
Li's poisoning could not have been an accident, because there was no trace 
of radioactivity in the lab, as would be expected after accidental sloshing 
or of radioactive chemicals.
      Instead, officials believe someone put phosphorus-32, a radioactive 
isotope in Li's food or drink, which was kept in a nearby room.
     The investigators also found that during off-hours, some areas of the 
lab "can be entered without a key and without a challenge," even though 
radioactive materials are stored there.
     Li was tested and found to have received just under 600 microcuries of 
radition, the occupational limit for a full year's exposure and the level 
that requires reporting to NRC.
     Glenn said the NRC decided to investigate because of the similarity to 
the NIH case and the rarity of phosphorus-32 poisoning.  He said the last 
previous ingestion occurred at Brown University in the early 1980s.
     Li did not return a reporter's call.  But a source with detailed 
knowledge of the case said Lihas complained of vomiting and pains.
     At the NIH, scientist Maryann Wenli Ma charged that she and 25 Other 
people on the Bethesda campus were contaminated by Phosphorus-32 in June, 
when she was 17 weeks pregnant.
     In its radioactive form, Phosphorus-32, is widely used in biology as a 
"tracer" that can be used to label a chemical and reveal its movement 
through living tissue.  One reason it is preferred as a research tool is 
that it has a short "half-life".  In 14 days, half of the radioactivity in 
a given amount is dispersed.

Sim Shanks, RSO                             shankss@odrge.odr.georgetown.edu
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