Talk:Karen Wetterhahn

message: The Wikipedia entry mentions that Wetterhahn had 80 times the lethal level of mercury in her blood; however, the linked article from Dartmouth Alumni Magazine states that she had 80 times the toxic threshold, not 80 times a lethal level.  In fact, a dose four times that amount is specifically mentioned to be "not necessarily lethal."  I'm changing the Wikipedia entry to match the article.
:The phrase "80 times the lethal level of mercury in her blood" probably comes from a comment under an entry in Derek Lowe's justly famous "Things I Won't Work With" blog, "Straight Dimethyl Zinc" relating Dr. Wetterhahn's tragic story as an example of the routine hazards of research into the chemistry of organometallic compounds (especially the methyls).  I'm sure the error on the respondent's part was accidental.  But good catch!! loupgarous (talk) 13:01, 2 August 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lethal vs. Toxic 

message: A couple of notes.  First, the blood mercury content was 20 not 80 times the threshold, 200 mkg/L being the limit.  Second, the discovery of dimethylmercury toxicity is in no way due to this accident.  Earlier fatalities have been reported, which fact was well known at Dartmouth.  In addition, organic mercury compounds were resposible for multiple deaths in Minamata, so the outcome could hardly have been a surprise.  I'll make the changes. Gauche 16:58, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Total mercury was estimated at 1344 mg at the time of exposure. Why are you making a distinction with radioactive? Dimethylmercury is FAR more dangerous than radioactive materials. Ariel. (talk) 06:22, 17 May 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: You're right. While plutonium oxide's up there with cobra venom on a per-weight toxicity basis, that's because of a chemically-mediated pulmonary fibrosis that occurs if you breathe the fine powder.  Pu's radiotoxicity, while considerable, isn't up there with the chemical toxicity of dimethylmercury (in either case, chelating agents exist which can be used to dramatically reduce body levels of these respective poisons, but treatment's only effective if begun promptly - and Dr. Wetterhahn only suspected she'd suffered an exposure months after the fact, when major neurological symptoms appeared). loupgarous (talk) 13:21, 2 August 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Errors 

message: Her death was referred to in the BBC television drama, Spooks, to illustrate the toxicity of dimethylmercury. Is this worth adding?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 138.251.227.89 (talk) 13:16, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: No. Offhand mentions aren't significant enough to be included in articles. DS (talk) 15:18, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Reference in Spooks 

message: From the 2nd paragraph onwards this reads like an article found in a news magazine - is that section copied from somewhere else without attribution? 131.130.237.104 (talk)
:Simply putting the first few words into Google confirms your suspicion, and shows that not only that section was copied, and copied badly, from the external link http://www.chm.bris.ac.uk/motm/dimethylmercury/dmmj.htm in the article. Perhaps it was copied badly in a juvenile attempt to confuse attempts to track down the plagiarism. I'll add a copyright violation tag.--Espoo (talk) 07:31, 26 April 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I think i found and removed all directly quoted unattributed text.--Espoo (talk) 10:19, 26 April 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Copyright violation 

message: Added the contradiction tag to the "Accident" section. Was the mercury poisoning detected after five or six months? Was the course of the symptoms only three weeks long or were there "initial neurological symptoms" like loss of balance earlier? – Acdx (talk) 10:26, 29 August 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: I've rewritten that section to clarify exactly what happened when. Removed tag accordingly. Shoebox2 talk 00:02, 18 December 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Contradiction 

message: There are two links to the article "The Trembling Edge of Science" by Karen Endicott which appeared in the April 1998 issue of the Dartmouth Alumni Magazine: one under References and one under External Links. These no longer go to the article, instead resulting in a Page Not Found on the IAOMT site. There is, however, a PDF copy of the article here: http://stemed.unm.edu/PDFs/cd/CLASSROOM_LAB_SAFETY/Trembling_Edge_Science.pdf
I do not know if this copy is an authorized reproduction of the DAM article so this should be confirmed before using it as a replacement link.
--FrancaSeven (talk) 23:28, 24 March 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Broken links 

message: Per this change, some chemically competent input would be welcomed. Andy Dingley (talk) 15:56, 18 June 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: "I shall correct the article in line with the edit-warrior's views." does not bode well for this article. Andy Dingley (talk) 20:23, 18 June 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Changes at [[List of unusual deaths#1990s]] 

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified one external link on Karen Wetterhahn. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20140715003519/http://stemed.unm.edu/PDFs/cd/CLASSROOM_LAB_SAFETY/Trembling_Edge_Science.pdf to http://stemed.unm.edu/PDFs/cd/CLASSROOM_LAB_SAFETY/Trembling_Edge_Science.pdf
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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: Why no mention of the sexism in preferring females for awards? If the situation was reversed they would be screaming sexism all over. Double standard much? I know know, I know, its only sexism if men do it, not when women do it.24.139.24.163 (talk) 02:58, 8 March 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: Because this is an article about Karen Wetterhahn, not sexism or awards? Brycehughes (talk) 07:02, 9 March 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sexism 

message: The table in the article lists place of death as Lyme, New Hampshire, but I have also seen it listed as Lebanon, New Hampshire, which would make sense as that is the location of the Dartmouth Medical Centre. (See https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1997/06/11/mercury-poisoning-death/bcd6c290-2e01-4feb-a367-b2e38e467700/ ) Is there a preffered source for this information?Dauwenkust (talk) 05:32, 1 July 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Place of Death