LA JOLLA, Calif. -- San Diego police said Wednesday they suspect a former employee of a La Jolla, Calif., research firm poisoned the coffee that made three executives fall ill.
Quidel Board Chairman Dr. David H. Katz, a victim of the third contaminated coffee incident at the plant in the past two years, said the employee was a descipline problem.
Katz, 40, and executive assistant Lucy B. Gunnill, 33, were hospitalized March 8 after drinking coffee from a large urn in the company lounge with Quidel president J. Robert Fosberg.
Katz and Ms. Gunnill said they began feeling drowsy and nauseous and later experienced hallucinations.
Fosberg said his symptoms were not as severe because he only drank a small amount of the coffee.
Katz and Ms. Gunnill have since been released from the hospital.
San Diego Police tested the coffee and discovered the presence of acrylamide, a colorless, odorless toxic chemical binding agent used in research at Quidel.
The former employee reportedly has hired a lawyer and refuses to talk to police on the grounds he may incriminate himself, police detective Dave English said.
'We're looking at one person harder than the others,' English said. 'He said he didn't do it, and didn't have anything to say.'
Katz described the former employee as a good worker, but a discipline problem.
The poisoning is the third such incident at the La Jolla research firm founded by Katz in the two years it has been in business.
Both unidentified victims of the earlier poisonings, a postdoctoral research fellow and a technician, also reportedly suffered bizzare hallucinations after drinking coffee.
One is back at work, Katz said, and the other resigned and moved to New York.
'I don't think there's any evidence that all attempts were were directed against one person,' said Katz. 'Certainly the earlier episodes didn't have anything to do with anyone affected this time.'
Katz said he has sworn off Quidel coffee and now brews his own in his office.
