His "Things I Won't Work With" series on Science (https://www.science.org/topic/blog-category/things-i-wont-wo...) is fun to read. The link in the article itself now unfortunately just points to the science.org homepage so you have to do some clicking around to get to this blog series.
This was my first thought.-
(Well, the poor woman, then, this article ...)
From the link:
> One problem with this subject is that it tends to lead to bragging contests about who has run the most hazardous reactions. But think about it: if these reactions have all been run for good reasons with the best protective equipment there is less to brag about. And if they haven’t, then the discussion turns into figuring out who has been the biggest fool
I suspect the answer is "bragging rights" in this case.