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manarth • last Saturday at 6:41 AM • 3 replies • view on HN

Other "sources" (using the word loosely as their provenance is unclear)

  > "based on the information available, this was a localized issue with only one student directly exposed. Their reported use of dimethyl mercury was unauthorized. MIT does not allow the purchase or synthesis of dimethyl mercury." [1]
Karen Wetterhahn's exposure and death [3] is a cautionary tale of the extreme toxicity of dimethyl mercury, and was instrumental in new safety recommendations, including strongly discouraging the use of dimethyl mercury for any purpose.

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/mit/comments/1w12gb9/dimethyl_mercu...

[2] https://www.nbcboston.com/news/local/hazmat-crews-respond-to...

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karen_Wetterhahn

Replies

gilleain • last Saturday at 7:45 AM

Yes, dimethyl mercury is terrifying stuff - it killed Karen Wetterhahn from a few drops that went _through_ the gloves she had on:

> The case proved that the standard precautions at the time, all of which Wetterhahn had carefully followed, were inadequate for "super-toxic" chemicals like dimethylmercury

(from the Wikipedia page [3])

recursivecaveat • yesterday at 7:06 PM

> Less than 0.1 mL is capable of inducing severe mercury poisoning resulting in death

Holy hell. I would've have believed it was possible for a non-biological substance to be so toxic.

➕ show 3 replies
randerson • yesterday at 6:35 PM

Good video about what happened to her body: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJ7M01jV058