Pregnant Scientist Says She Was Poisoned on Job
WASHINGTON (AP) - A pregnant researcher at the National Institutes of Health contends she was deliberately poisoned last summer with a radioactive isotope placed in food stored in a lunchroom refrigerator at her laboratory.
Dr. Maryann Ma, a postdoctoral researcher in a cancer lab at the NIH, said Tuesday at a news conference she was "contaminated on purpose by someone at NIH," and doctors at the federal health agency then failed to give her proper treatment for radiation poisoning.
"After it was confirmed that I was contaminated, NIH did not give me any treatment," she said. "NIH also failed to suggest any necessary actions or treatment to effectively lower the contamination I had received."
NIH spokesman Thomas Flavin acknowledged there was a contamination on June 28 that was "apparently deliberate" by a radioactive isotope called P-32 and Ma was one of 27 people affected at the NIH. He said the radioactive material was found in a kitchen and in a water cooler.
Flavin said the FBI and the security section of the NIH are conducting a criminal investigation of the incident.
Ma was the only person treated at a hospital for the radioactive contamination and Flavin said medical personnel treating her "feel that the treatment was appropriate."
After a few hours of hospital treatment, Ma was sent home, but said she then spent hours vomiting.
P-32 is an isotope commonly used in biological research, and radiation experts said it poses a serious hazard only if it is ingested.
Ma and her husband, Dr. Bill Wenling Zheng, are both visiting scientists from China. They are employed at the NIH under a two-year study grant, but said they currently are on paid administrative leave. Flavin said they have been assigned to another NIH lab outside of the National Cancer Institute.
Both Ma and her husband have filed petitions with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission asking that the radioactive materials license of the NIH be revoked. They claim the agency fails to adequately control and secure radioactive materials.
Their lawyer, Lynne Bernabei, said the NIH routinely violates radioactive materials handling regulations enforced by the NRC by leaving the materials in unsecured refrigerators and in other unguarded storage sites.
Diane Screnci, spokeswoman for the NRC, said her agency received the petition Tuesday, and it was being reviewed. She said the NRC will decide what action to take within about two months.
An NRC team conducted a special inspection of the NIH after the contamination incident reported by Ma and Screnci said, "We found that the agency was in compliance and that their workers and the public were safely protected."
She said the NIH took measures recommended by the NRC, and inspectors found the health agency's inventory control "was excellent."
Screnci said an NIH inspection a year earlier found two NRC violations: failure to properly secure radioactive materials and allowing workers to drink coffee in the same room where the radioactive materials were being used in research.
Ma contended at the news conference that the contamination took place after her NIH supervisor, Dr. John N. Weinstein, tried to persuade her and her husband to abort their baby because the maternity would interfere with their research project. Ma said she became pregnant last April.
She said Weinstein urged the couple "to work tirelessly" on a project related to a new laboratory genetic procedure that Weinstein wanted to patent.
An attorney for Weinstein told The Washington Post the researcher "categorically denies" he urged Ma to abort her pregnancy.
Bernabei said an independent assessment of Ma's radioactive contamination concluded she was exposed to 18 times the recommended maximum dosage for pregnant women, and the unborn baby was exposed to 12 times the recommended dosage.
The lawyer said the pregnancy appears to be proceeding normally.