Ill Women Return to U.S. From Russia

Dr. Stern Arkady points to a photo of Dr. Marina Kovalevsky on right in photo, and her daughter, Yana, in West Hollywood, Calif., Wednesday, March 7, 2007. The U.S. Embassy on Wednesday confirmed that two American women have been hospitalized in Moscow for possible thallium poisoning. (AP Photo/Nick Ut) (Nick Ut - AP)

LOS ANGELES -- Two American women who were hospitalized in Moscow for suspected thallium poisoning flew home to the United States on Wednesday, as colleagues and relatives tried to understand how the two were exposed to the potentially fatal chemical.

Dr. Marina Kovalevsky, 49, and her daughter, Yana, 26, arrived at Los Angeles International Airport and were taken in wheelchairs past news media to two waiting ambulances and placed on gurneys.

"We're going to the hospital straight away," Yana Kovalevsky told reporters. "We just got off a 12-hour flight. Please give us a break."

A cousin said earlier the women would be going to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.

In Moscow, a U.S. Embassy spokesman said Russian officials were investigating how and when the women could have come into contact with poison.

Moscow police declined to comment, but the Ekho Moskvy radio reported authorities were checking cafes and restaurants in the area of the hotel where the women stayed. The women are Soviet-born and immigrated to the United States in 1989. They have visited Russia repeatedly since then, relatives and colleagues said.

The hospital where the women were treated since falling ill Feb. 24 said Wednesday morning they were in moderately serious condition, and Moscow's top public health doctor, Nikolai Filatov, was quoted by the RIA-Novosti news agency as saying that thallium poisoning had been confirmed.

In West Hollywood, Calif., where Marina Kovalevsky opened an internal medicine practice six or seven years ago, relatives said she left for Moscow on Feb. 14 to attend a friend's party.

Surrounded by the cities of Los Angeles and Beverly Hills, West Hollywood has a large Russian-speaking immigrant community.

Oyuna Chuluun, a medical assistant at Kovalevsky's clinic, said she thought the apparent poisoning was an accident.

"We just don't believe someone would want to poison her," Chuluun said.

Stern said that after it was suspected she was poisoned, Marina Kovalevksy was given dialysis and took an antidote and her condition began to improve. He said that since both women had the same symptoms, it led to suspicion they were poisoned, but he believed it was "some sort of tragic mistake."