Even before Wetterhahn’s accident, some chemists had refused to work with dimethylmercury out of concerns for their safety.
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Why Not Use Ibogaine Treatments for Drug Addiction? In early February 1997, just three weeks after the appearance of symptoms, Wetterhahn descended into a coma. Dimethyl mercury, or organic mercury poisoning, however, is a whole different ball game. As her senses continued to diminish, she exhorted her department chairman to alarm persons in their line of work about the extreme hazards of dimethylmercury. Within weeks after her admission to the ER, KW was in a comatose state. The minuscule spill of this clear liquid had caused her no pain or any other sensation, and she had no reason to think the incident was serious. In January 1997, Wetterhahn began to notice tingling in her lower extremities. Where Are America's Prescription Drugs Made?
She commenced a treatment known as chelation therapy, which sought to convert the mercury within her body into a substance that she could excrete. He had made NMR standards of nontoxic mercury salts for Wetterhahn, but when she did not get the expected results she went back to using dimethylmercury to confirm her findings. Though her blood had a mercury level 4,000 times that of a normal person, only 5% of the mercury in her body was in her bloodstream. Furthermore, laboratory workers were to report any spills and receive immediate medical attention, and anyone who consistently worked with dimethylmercury should receive periodic tests of their blood and urine.
Her death caused the safety standards for dealing with dimethyl mercury to be rewritten.
Dimethyl mercury, or organic mercury poisoning, however, is a whole different ball game. Mad As A Hatter! Though only two documented fatalities in a century may seem surprising for such a dangerous substance, Sugden relates that dimethylmercury ‘was never commonly worked with in the lab, even among organometallic chemists’. Methylmercury and Dimethylmercury The toxic effects of mercury depend on its chemical form and the route of exposure. The mercury didn't just destroy the neurons in KW's brain, but in her whole nervous system. News, 1997, 75, 6, 3 S F Witt, Hazard Information Bulletins: Dimethylmercury, OSHA 1998, Injection injury involving trace amounts of dichloromethane caused serious tissue damage to student’s finger, It’s still not clear whether quantum chemistry has all the answers, 2020 Ig Nobel prizes went to teams that proved knives made of faeces fail, vibrating worms are interesting and hating chewing noises is a disorder. Six months later, she was removed from life support and died, less than a year after her initial exposure to the mercury. She began to have problems with her balance and her field of vision started to shrink.
Read our policy. This episode of Chubbyemu tells the story of one of these cases, in which a professor who researched toxic metal exposure accidentally dropped a few milliliters of dimethyl mercury on her gloved hand one day in 1996. Or just chemistry we don’t quite understand yet? Unfortunately for KW, most of the mercury in her body went straight to one of the fattiest organs in the body: the brain.
The furs used to make felt hats were dipped in a preservative made with mercury nitrate solutions.
The doctors attempted to rid her blood of mercury through chelation, a process that removes heavy metals from the body. By using this site, you agree to its use of cookies. More than 200 years ago, hat making was a profitable business, but it could also be a deadly one! Worldwide Viral Resistance to Drug Therapy, Writing As A Special and Rewarding Career, Writing Murder Scenes Using Concentrated Nicotine Liquid, Writing Murder Scenes Using Perchloric Acid. She remained in a vegetative state until she died on 8 June 1997, aged 48, leaving behind a husband and two children. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io. Was Trump's Indoor Rally a Superspreader Event? NASA Found Another Way Into Nuclear Fusion, The CIA Considered Using Lightning As a Weapon, Let's Remember the Largest Helicopter Ever, 10 Best Air Purifiers for a Breath of Fresh Air, Why the 4468 Mallard Is Such a Badass Train.
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