60 Minutes Segment on P-32 Contamination

[rick_strickert@pc.radian.com]

    The case of the NIH P-32 contamination presented on 60 Minutes would
    make a great Perry Mason episode - everyone involved had a possible
    motive, including the obligatory "mad scientist" who wanders from lab
    to lab contaminating people just to watch what happens. (Maybe
    intergalactic aliens did it in retaliation for showing the dissection
    of one of their own on TV!)

    Anyway, there was one comment (other than the reporter's hype) that
    caught my ear.  In denying suggestions that he had been involved in the
    contamination, Dr. Weinstein, the NIH lab supervisor of Dr. Maryann Ma,
    said that he didn't use P-32 and wouldn't even know where to find it in
    the lab.  I find it a little strange that a direct supervisor of a
    person working in a lab that used radioactivity would claim not to know
    where to find P-32.  The 60 Minutes camera showed pretty clearly where
    the labelled radioactive materials were stored in the lab.

    Earlier in the segment Dr. Bill Zheng, Dr. Ma's husband, said that he
    had discovered his wife's contamination while doing a routine radiation
    survey in the lab.  As he passed his wife, seated next to a lab bench,
    the survey meter indicated the presence of radioactivity.

    Because what I saw on the show may have resulted from selective editing
    by 60 Minutes, I don't claim to know all the details or their context.
    The evidence seems clear that the contamination was deliberate, but I
    have NO idea who did it.  Any health physics amateur detectives out
    there - have at it!

    Although they didn't show a picture, I was glad to hear that Dr. Ma is
    now the "Ma" of a healthy baby boy.

    Rick

Richard G. Strickert, Ph.D.         | "I have found that a great part of the
Radian Corporation, Austin, TX      | information I have was acquired by look-
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Internet: rick_strickert@radian.com | else on the way."
 ---> "All written IMHO."<---       |               -- Franklin P. Adams