Harvard investigates poisoning case

BOSTON, Oct. 26 (UPI) -- The mysterious poisoning of six lab workers at Harvard Medical School should be investigated as a crime, a Boston toxicologist said.

The scientists and students fell ill after drinking from a coffee machine at the New Research Building in the Longwood Medical complex, The Boston Herald reported Monday.

The six, who recovered, were found to have ingested sodium azide, a poison, Harvard officials publicly disclosed late last week, nearly two months after the Aug. 26 incident.

"Could it have gotten in the coffee machine inadvertently? Absolutely

not," said David Benjamin, a toxicologist and clinical pharmacologist in Boston. "It could be considered an attempted murder or assault."

Harvard officials are "very thoroughly and intensely" investigating the incident, medical school spokesman David Cameron said Sunday, offering no other details.

A decade ago, a doctor at a hospital in Kyoto, Japan, was convicted of putting sodium azide, a preservative, in tea served to fellow doctors, The Herald reported.