Varmus. Williams penalized

Isotopes lost-

UCSF restricts

radiation rights

By Charles Piller

Synapse has learned that UCSF
officials have prohibited the labs of Dr.
Harold Varmus and Dr. Lewis Williams
from ordering radioactive isotopes for a
period of at least two weeks. The ban was
spurred by separate incidents of apparent
mishandling of low-level radioactive
materials.  In each case, isotopes are
believed to have been disposed of
inadvertently in the regular trash.

The punitive actions have sparked
concerns on the part of some UCSF
scientists that campus officials are
ovcrreacting to ongoing community and
state pressure about campus health and
safety practices.
The Varmus incident, which involved
3 millicuries of Sulphur-35, took place
Jan. 14, and the ban on his ordering new
isotopes began Jan. 19. Williams's lab is
thought to have lost 250 microcuries of
Phosphorus-32, a substance which emits a
somewhat higher amount of radiation, on
Jan, 20, according to Gerard Wong, an
official with the Radiologic Health Branch
of the California Department of Health
Services.
The prohibition against Williams
ordering new isotopes began Jan. 25, said
J. Leroy Baker, assistant vice chancellor
for environmental health and safety (EHS).
His department is investigating the
incidents.

State and campus officials emphasized
that the amount of radioactive materials
allegedly lost present little if any danger
unless they are swallowed --a virtually
inconceivable prospect, considering that
they are probably buried in a landfill by
now.
"It's not something that could pose a
real hazard to the general public," Wong
said.
"People sometimes don't understand
that amounts used in basic research are
terribly small," nothing like the radiation
sources in a nuclear power plant, said Dr.
David Ramsay, vice chancellor for
academic affairs.
Karl Hittelman, associate vice chancel-
lor for academic affairs pointed out that
UCSF receives 7,000 deliveries of
radioactive isotopes per year, not including
those used in the hospitals and clinics.
"Therefore you have to think about the
[extremely low] level of noncompliance
[when considering the] potential hazard to
the community," he said.

Continued on page 8

Dr. Harold Varmus

-8- Synapse January 28, 1988

Radiation

(Continued from page 1)

According to Balzer, isotopes typically
are lost about five or six times each year
at UCSF.
Varmus and Williams are also pro-
hibited from borrowing isotopes from
colleagues, although they will be allowed

Dr. Lewis Williams

to continue using any isotopes they have
on hand, according to campus radiation
safety committee chairman Regis Kelly.
The actions by campus officials go
beyond what is required by state
regulators, and reflect a "get-tough" policy
against irregularities in radiation handling,
said Balzer.
Williams, an associate professor of
medicine and a prominent member of the
Howard Hughes Medical Institute, had his
lab shut down by state and campus
officials in Nov. 1985 for gross radiation
safety violations.  Balzer said that as
recently as last November Williams' lab
experienced a similar lost-isotope incident.

Varmus, who holds appointments in
the departments of microbiology, and
biochemistry and biophysics, is widely
considered one of the world's foremost
authorities on retroviruses --the class to
which the AIDS virus belongs-- and is
credited with pioneering research in that
area. His lab was cited by state officials
in March 1987 for a variety of radiation
safety infractions related to storage, record
keeping and handling.

Varmus and Williams will be required
to pass a radiation safety exam and an
EHS inspection of their labs before their
rights to order isotopes will be reinstated.
The day Williams begins reording
isotopes, Balzer added, he will additionally
be required to hire a radiation health
physics specialist to evaluate his lab and
re-train his entire staff.

Balzer: "Foremost on our
minds are the perceptions
of students and people off
campus. "

Williams was given this special
requirement, said Kelly, in part because of
his past record of serious violations.
"We're attempting, through this
process, to get full compliance with the
regulations," Balzer said.
The radiation safety committee agreed
on the sanctions only after much serious
discussion, according to Kelly.
Committee members were concerned
about the possible adverse affect of their
decision on important research, he said.

Overkill?

Williams called the administration's
punitive response "bizarre." He blamed
the accident on poor administrative
procedures for the transfer of isotopes from
the radiation safety office to the labs. And
he criticized the radiation safety exam
required by UCSF as too academic and
abstract, with insufficient emphasis on
practical radiation-handling skills.
Williams strongly objected to the
implication that his lab is inattentive to
radiation safety.  "In '85 our lab wasn't
better than other labs using this amount of

radiation, but it wasn't worse.  We just
got caught." Since then, he added, his lab
has become "one of the safest" on campus,
and spends about 15 to 20 person-hours
per week on radiation safety. "The notion
that we are negligent is false.  I don't
believe it's fair."

The inability to order isotopes will cost
Williams' lab thousands of dollars in lost
work time, he said. The penalty is parti-

Williams: 'The notion that
we are negligent is false.
I don't believe it's fair."

cularly ironic because "we detected and
reported the loss so quickly," Williams
said.  "It's because of our attention to the
problem that we are being punished."

The atmosphere created by this kind of
administrative action "makes it difficult
for us to work at this institution," he
added.  "Because we've made so much
effort in radiation safety, this is
devastating to the morale of the people in
my group."

Varmus declined to comment, but other
scientists questioned the propriety of the
sanctions, particularly when imposed
upon a scientist of Varmus's stature.
"Despite the potential seriousness of
what happened [in Varmus's lab], it was
an accident.  And as it turned out, the
likelihood that it would do any harm is
vanishingly small," said Dr. Leon
Levintow, chairman of the department of
microbiology. "[The ban on ordering]
interferes with important, urgent
research," he added.  "I think that the
action was ill-considered under the
circumstances."

Biochemistry and biophysics depart-
ment chairman Bruce Alberts also
questioned the usefulness of punititive
remedies for what he considers minor
accidents caused by human error that can
never realistically be eliminated
completely.

These recent episodes occured against
the backdrop of major health and
safety-related controversies that have
exasperated the campus community for the
past few years.
UCSF has been fighting a protracted
court battle over moving basic science
labs to the new Laurel Heights campus.
A local neighborhood group sued the
university, claiming that the project's
environmental impact report
underestimates the dangers from
emmissions of toxic and radioactive
substances from those labs into the
outlying community.  The case is now
pending before the California Supreme
court.

UCSF, among many large biomedical
institutions, is permitted by the state to
self-regulate for most radiation safety
requirements. In recent years the campus
experienced a series of radiation safety
problems.  Last March UCSF was cited
for 33 violations of state regulations.
Only one violation was related to an actual
overexposure, but several handling,
storage and record-keeping citations were
considered "very serious."

The renewal of UCSFs overall radi-
ation-use permit has been held up since
then, pending an agreement between the
campus and the state on penalties for the
1987 citations and on a major set of
reforms in the campus self-regulation
program. The university has been
operating on a temporary permit.
Therefore, the campus has felt tremen-
dous pressure from state regulators and the
community to improve its radiation safety
record.  At least as far as the state is
concerned, the campus has done its job
well on the Varmus and Williams cases.