Mercury Spill Kills Researcher

LYME, N.H. - A highly regarded Dartmouth College chemistry professor accidentally spilled a toxic chemical on her latex gloves last summer in the lab. This week it killed her.

Karen Wetterhahn died Sunday at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center of complications resulting from mercury poisoning, Dartmouth said.

Wetterhahn, 48, had been hospitalized since late January.

"For the scientific community, Karen's death represents the loss of one of its brightest lights," college President James Freedman said.

Dartmouth shut down Wetterhahn's lab and began an investigation after she was diagnosed with mercury poisoning. No other people were found to be contaminated, and the lab was reopened.

She didn't fall ill until months after the accident. Wetterhahn told college investigators that last August she spilled one or several drops of a rarely used and highly toxic substance, dimethyl mercury, on the disposable latex gloves she was wearing. Apparently, the substance seeped through to her skin.

"I think in this case, Karen wasn't aware of the peril she was in at the time of the spill," said John Winn, head of the Dartmouth chemistry department.

Dartmouth officials said they found only one other report of a researcher dying from dimethyl-mercury poisoning this century.

Wetterhahn joined Dartmouth's faculty in 1976. She had served as dean of graduate studies and associate dean of the science faculty. She was a past officer of the American Association for Cancer Research and the author of more than 85 research papers.

In 1990, she co-founded the Women in Science Project, which aims to increase the number of women majoring and taking courses in the sciences.

The results of the college's investigation were published as a letter in the May 12 edition of Chemical and Engineering News, a weekly publication of the American Chemical Society.

It warned other researchers to be careful, noting that tests found liquid dimethyl mercury penetrates disposable latex gloves in 15 seconds or less.