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Dimethyl Mercury Exposure Incident at MIT

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Re: Dimethyl Mercury Exposure Incident at MIT

#21

Post by trq01758 »

ButlerianJihad wrote: post #15

Back in 1998, I scored a consulting job at a silicon plant outside of Salem, OR. Now I was working as a systems admin and I was expected to be responsible for the computer systems, which were basically located in the normal offices, rather than a dedicated machine room floor. However, since it was an active silicon manufacturing plant, all employees and contractors were obligated to complete safety training sessions.…

Oh yeah, cleaning chemical vapor deposition chambers in semiconductor industry, that's another one from Derek Lowe: https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/sand-won-t-save-yo...

Re: Dimethyl Mercury Exposure Incident at MIT

#22

Post by dimethylmercury »

EA-3167 wrote: post #10
consumer451 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you look at the reddit thread, there is a horrific story: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karen_Wetterhahn#Accident_and_...

Yeah that was awful, but in her case she was unaware of the poisoning for months iirc. Then again I don't really buy that chelation therapy works that well for something as absurdly toxic as this even if you found a safe and workable ligand. I guess the student just needs to hope their exposure was incredibly minute, otherwise they really have only a hard death to look forward to.

There are some new results for treatment with selenium and acetyl cysteine. MGH is probably the best place to get treatment for this. We’ll have to wait and see, and there is not any information out about the extent of exposure. Prior cases all seem to have only sought treatment upon getting symptoms, so I am cautiously optimistic about this case

Re: Dimethyl Mercury Exposure Incident at MIT

#23

Post by chorizo »

manarth wrote: post #17
gavinward wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Hydrofluoric acid is probably the substance you're describing which leaches the calcium out of your bones. It will certainly burn you too though. It's a common byproduct from heating fluorinated gases and is sometimes used in its own right for wet etching. As an aside, I love it when they tell you in the safety WBT what the highly toxic gas smells like.

For lower concentrations (< 50%) HF burns aren't always immediately visible (and often not immediately painful), which can delay treatment as people may assume it's not serious.

Yes it can destroy your nerves faster than you register pain, so you might not even feel the damage HF caused

Re: Dimethyl Mercury Exposure Incident at MIT

#24

Post by Polizeiposaune »

peesem wrote: post #3

There's also an alert on the MIT emergency page, though it doesn't mention the substance by name: https://emergency.mit.net/

Latest update reads in part:

"Emerging information calls into question whether this compound was in fact synthesized. We are also able to disclose, with the student’s permission, that while the student remains under medical supervision, their initial blood test result, which was received today, shows no sign of exposure to mercury."

Re: Dimethyl Mercury Exposure Incident at MIT

#26

Post by fortenforge »

Note that it seems increasingly unlikely that it was actually synthesized.

> Emerging information calls into question whether this compound was in fact synthesized.

> while the student remains under medical supervision, their initial blood test result, which was received today, shows no sign of exposure to mercury.

Taken from https://emergency.mit.edu/

Re: Dimethyl Mercury Exposure Incident at MIT

#27

Post by SoftTalker »

gavinward wrote: post #16
ButlerianJihad wrote: post #15

Back in 1998, I scored a consulting job at a silicon plant outside of Salem, OR. Now I was working as a systems admin and I was expected to be responsible for the computer systems, which were basically located in the normal offices, rather than a dedicated machine room floor. However, since it was an active silicon manufacturing plant, all employees and contractors were obligated to complete safety training sessions.…

I think Hydrofluoric acid is probably the substance you're describing which leaches the calcium out of your bones. It will certainly burn you too though. It's a common byproduct from heating fluorinated gases and is sometimes used in its own right for wet etching. As an aside, I love it when they tell you in the safety WBT what the highly toxic gas smells like.

HF is released in lithium ion battery fires. Just one reason why the correct response to such a fire is GTFO as fast as you can.

Re: Dimethyl Mercury Exposure Incident at MIT

#28

Post by randerson »

manarth wrote: post #11

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 wa…

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

Re: Dimethyl Mercury Exposure Incident at MIT

#29

Post by kylepdm »

nirse wrote: post #13

Derek Lowe mentions dimethyl mercury as the first substance that's not worth the risk: https://www.chemistryworld.com/opinion/a-risk-not-worth-taki...

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.

Re: Dimethyl Mercury Exposure Incident at MIT

#30

Post by macintux »

SoftTalker wrote: post #27
gavinward wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Hydrofluoric acid is probably the substance you're describing which leaches the calcium out of your bones. It will certainly burn you too though. It's a common byproduct from heating fluorinated gases and is sometimes used in its own right for wet etching. As an aside, I love it when they tell you in the safety WBT what the highly toxic gas smells like.

HF is released in lithium ion battery fires. Just one reason why the correct response to such a fire is GTFO as fast as you can.

Reading through https://www.mass.gov/doc/toxicology-of-the-lithium-ion-batte..., especially seeing the skin impact of a battery combustion in someone's pocket, is enough to make me think I should keep an inventory of every Li-ion battery in the house.
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