I-125 poisoning

[Chris Alston <alstonc@odrge.odr.georgetown.edu>]

>Not an urban legend.  This article is from the Providence Journal.

>Brown student charged in radioactive poisonings
><Picture>The graduate student is accused of poisoning two other students with
>stolen radioactive iodine-125. Health officials say the risk to the students
>is small.
>
>By FELICE J. FREYER
>Journal Medical Writer
>
>PROVIDENCE -- A Brown University graduate student has been charged with
>poisoning two fellow students by serving them a vegetable dish laced with a
>radioactive substance that he allegedly stole from a laboratory.
>
>Cheng Gu, 24, of 130 Doyle Ave., was arrested on Friday by Providence police
>and charged with assault, larceny and poisoning.
>
>The radioactive substance is iodine-125, an isotope used to treat and diagnose
>thyroid conditions and, in the Brown laboratories, to tag proteins in
>experiments.
>
>Mark Nickel, Brown University spokesman, said that the students who ate the
>contaminated food were unharmed. ``The amount of radioactive contamination is
>about equal to what you would get in a medical diagnostic procedure,'' he
>said. ``There's no immediate health threat. . . . The amounts involved are not
>health- or life-threatening by quite a long shot.''
>
>The alleged poisoning victims were identified in the police report as Yuanyuan
>Xiao and James A. O'Brien, who are roommates at 168 Elmgrove Ave. A man
>identifying himself as O'Brien answered the door at their home yesterday
>morning, but declined to be interviewed, saying both he and Xiao would prefer
>to maintain their privacy.
>
>Brown officials said that Xiao and Gu are graduate students in molecular
>pharmacology and are both from China. O'Brien is an undergraduate in a Brown
>program for students returning to college after a time in the work force, they
>said. Providence police described Gu as ``a former boyfriend'' of Xiao's, and
>referred the case to the domestic violence unit.
>
>According to Nickel and the Providence police report, the alleged poisoning
>was discovered on Wednesday, when Xiao entered a laboratory to perform an
>experiment. In keeping with Brown University's radiation safety protocols, she
>was tested with a Geiger counter before starting the experiment, and was found
>to be radioactive.
>
>The university's radiation safety officers went to her home to search for the
>source of the radiation, and with a Geiger counter, located a dish of cooked
>food that was radioactive in a refrigerator.
>
>The pharmacology laboratory where Xiao worked was closed on Thursday and
>Friday, and everyone who worked there was tested, so that radiation officials
>could rule out any other possible source of contamination.
>
>Xiao told police that she and O'Brien had both eaten the radioactive food.
>Police allege that Gu prepared the dish and delivered it to Xiao's home last
>Sunday.
>
>The police report also says that Gu ``has access to a laboratory where this
>type of radioactive material is stored.''
>
>But Nickel, the Brown spokesman, said it remains unclear where the iodine-125
>came from. Nickel said that although Gu was working in a lab, he was not
>working with iodine-125. Had he been participating in an experiment involving
>the substance, he would have undergone safety protocols that require a Geiger-
>counter test of each person before and after working with the substance.
>
>``We are doing inventories of all the substances to determine whether in fact
>there are any quantities missing,'' Nickel said. ``I haven't had any word of
>specific quantities missing from a specific lab. . . . As far as I've heard
>from the people at Brown who are checking into all this, all the safety
>protocols were followed. There is no question of a lapse in security.''
>
>Nickel said that the laboratories using radioactive materials are ``very
>tightly regulated.'' They are licensed by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory
>Commission, through the Rhode Island Department of Health.
>
>Iodine-125 is shipped to Brown in solid crystals, Nickel said. When
>researchers use the substance in experiments, they dissolve the salts in
>liquid, for easier handling. Brown officials don't know what form the
>substance was in when it was stolen or placed in the food.
>
>The university notified the Department of Health of the incident last week.
>Marie Stoeckel, chief of the department's office of occupational and
>radiological health, said the Health Department is overseeing and monitoring
>the investigation from a distance. ``They're conducting their own internal
>investigation and keeping us informed with regular phone calls,'' she said.
>``We've got quite a bit of confidence in [Brown's] radiation safety office and
>their procedures.''
>
>``Our sense,'' Stoeckel said, ``is they were following all security measures
>that were appropriate.''
>
>How, then, did a radioactive substance get into a refrigerator in a private
>home? Nickel and Stoeckel declined to speculate, saying only that the
>investigation was continuing.
>
>Stoeckel commented: ``Internal security is a very challenging issue if someone
>is not acting in a moral, legal and ethical way.''
>
>She stressed that incident involved no threat to public health or safety.
>
>As for the students who were allegedly poisoned, Stoeckel said: ``My
>understanding from preliminary scans that were conducted is that there's
>negligible risk to the two individuals.'' Radiation poses the greatest hazard
>to rapidly dividing cells, such as those of a developing fetus or a cancerous
>tumor, Stoeckel said. (She said no one involved in this incident is pregnant.)
>
>In the case of iodine-125, half the radiation fades away within about six
>months, according to Nickel. In time, radioactive iodine decays into a
>nonradioactive substance.
>
>``Our first concern is for the safety and health of the students involved,''
>said Laura Freid, Brown's executive vice president for public affairs and
>university relations. ``We are relieved that no one has suffered health
>consequences.'' Freid said that the university was monitoring the students'
>health daily. Each of the three students has been assigned a graduate student
>adviser.
>
>Gu faces five charges: felony assault against O'Brien, domestic felony assault
>against Xiao, larceny over $500 ``for theft of material from Brown,''
>poisoning O'Brien and poisoning Xiao. The poisoning charges are felonies
Chris Alston
alstonc@odrge.odr.georgetown.edu
I am not here a representative of my employer.

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