送交者: 中南海内参 于 2005-1-19, 19:21:53:
回答: 由 NewYorker 于 2005-1-19, 19:06:43:
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/277/5334/1920a
When they surfaced 2 years ago, the allegations were explosive: A pregnant scientist in a lab at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) said she had been poisoned by a radioactive isotope, and 26 of her co-workers were subsequently found to have been contaminated as well. Last week, an investigation into this bizarre affair drew to a close, leaving many questions unanswered. In a decision issued on 17 September, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) concluded that the radiation exposure of the scientist, Maryann Wenli Ma, and others was "deliberate." But it could not identify the perpetrator and offered no motive.
NRC did, however, absolve NIH of blame and denied Ma's and her husband's request that NIH be stripped of its license to use radioactive materials. Ma's attorneys say they may ask the NRC or Congress to review the decision. "Obviously, we're very distressed by this decision," says Debra Katz of the Washington law firm Bernabei and Katz, which represented Ma and her husband, Bill Wenling Zheng, who worked in the same lab as Ma.
It was Zheng who first discovered, during a routine check on 29 June 1995, that Ma had been exposed to phosphorus-32 (P-32)--a tracer widely used in biomedical labs. She was eventually found to have been exposed to between 8 and 12.7 rems--well above the NRC annual limit of 5 rems--and her 17-week-old fetus to 5.1 to 8.1 rems. Ma said she believed the source was a lunch of Chinese food leftovers stored in a lab refrigerator. A subsequent investigation found that 26 others, including Zheng, had received much smaller exposures when they drank from a water cooler apparently spiked with P-32 (Science, 28 July 1995, p. 483).
In October 1995, Ma and Zheng filed a petition charging NIH with lax safety procedures, claiming that Ma had been given inadequate medical care, and calling for the suspension or revocation of NIH's license to use radioisotopes. The petition also claimed that before the contamination occurred, the couple's lab chief, molecular pharmacologist John Weinstein, had wanted Ma to abort her fetus so that having a child wouldn't interfere with her research.
The NRC investigation, conducted jointly with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the NIH police, and the inspector general of the Department of Health and Human Services, concludes that there were two "very significant" violations, according to a cover letter to NIH: Ma's contamination and that of one other employee who received up to 2.5 times the recommended dose for the public. The NRC director's decision also found that Ma and the 26 other employees were "deliberately contaminated with P-32," and it "presumes" the poisoning was done by an NIH employee with NIH materials. The investigation could not determine how Ma was poisoned, however; tests indicated that the Chinese leftovers were not the source. The investigators also found that the evidence did not support, and in many instances contradicted, Ma's and Zheng's allegations against Weinstein.
As for NIH, the decision says that although it broke several rules--such as failing to report Ma's exposure within 30 days--its actions did not contribute to the poisoning and could not have prevented it. NIH did get its wrist slapped last year when NRC fined it $2500 for inadequate radiation security, but the lapses weren't connected to the Ma case. The letter to NIH says the agency has since "made significant efforts" to improve its safety procedures, so no further sanctions are needed.
http://www.antenna.nl/wise/index.html?http://www.antenna.nl/wise/442/4370.html
Deliberate contamination in US medical institute
A pregnant cancer researcher at a pre-eminent United States medical laboratory alleged on October 10, that she was deliberately contaminated with radiation after she resisted a supervisor's pressures to have an abortion. "Less than a week after we told our supervisor that I wanted to declare my pregnancy ... I was contaminated on purpose by someone at NIH (National Institutes of Health) with the radiation material P-32," Dr. Maryann Ma told a news conference, referring to herself and her husband.
(442.4370) WISE-Amsterdam - The couple asked the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to suspend or revoke NIH's license to handle hazardous nuclear materials, which are common in medical research, and their lawyers called for a full-scale congressional investigation. The couple also alleged that NIH tried to cover up the incident, under-reported the dose of radiation Ma received, discounted any risk to Ma or her foetus and interfered with proper treatment when she sought help at a hospital.
An NIH spokesman did not dispute the apparently intentional nature of the contamination, calling it an "unfortunate episode" and noting that the institute called in the FBI to investigate the case.
Ma ingested the radiation when she ate food she had left in a closed container in a refrigerator at the National Cancer Institute at NIH on June 28, her lawyer, Lynne Bernabei, said. Ma was 17 weeks pregnant at the time. A consultant hired by the couple said a few drops of liquid P-32 would be enough to raise Ma's lifetime risk of cancer by as much as 80 percent.
Ma's husband, Dr. Bill Zheng, who worked in the same lab, discovered the contamination on a routine sweep of the area with a Geiger counter at the end of the working day. Zheng and 24 other people at NIH also ingested P-32 when they drank from a water cooler within two weeks of Ma's contamination.
Ma and Zheng, both from China, were on a two-year fellowship at the cancer institute. They did work with radioactive isotopes -- though not P-32 -- but Ma's intention to declare her pregnancy meant that under federal guidelines she would be shielded from working with such materials. She said that when she told her supervisor of her pregnancy, he asked whether she planned to keep the baby and throughout June pressured the couple to abort the foetus. Less than a week later the contamination was discovered. The baby is expected in December.