Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, October 11, 1995                   TAG: 9510110055
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                 LENGTH: Medium

SCIENTIST SAYS SHE WAS POISONED BY RADIATION

Dr. Maryann Ma, a postdoctoral researcher in a cancer lab at the NIH, said at a news conference Tuesday that she was ``contaminated on purpose by someone at NIH'' and that doctors at the federal health agency then failed to give her proper treatment for internal 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 that there was a contamination on June 28 that was ``apparently deliberate'' by a radioactive isotope called P-32 and that 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 that medical personnel who treated her ``feel that the treatment was appropriate.''

After a few hours of hospital treatment, Ma was sent home, but she said that 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, however, said they have been assigned to another NIH lab outside of the National Cancer Institute.

Both Ma and her husband, Dr. Bill Wenling Zheng, have filed petitions with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission asking that the radioactive-material 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 an NRC team conducted a special inspection of the NIH after the comtamination incident and ``We found that the agency was in compliance and that their workers and the public were safely protected.''