Still, the tragic yet very helpful legacy left by Radium Girls laid the foundation of the occupational hazard section in the labor law and contributed a lot to the scientific research of the radioactive materials. With a half-life of 1,600 years, once the radium was inside the women's bodies, it was there for good. Some of the effects were noticed much later in life through various forms of cancer. It's hard to calculate exactly how many women suffered from health problems due to the ingestion of radium, but there were thousands of them. Radium paint itself was eventually phased out and has not been used in watches since 1968. The year prior to that event, the Food and Drug Administration banned the misleading labeling of radium-based products. The survivors received compensation, and death certificates started reporting the correct cause of death. “Living Death’ Victims,” The Times-News (Hendersonville, NC), February 14, 1938, p.1./Image by University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Library, via Lib. Years went by before any of the workers developed symptoms. But radiation poisoning wasn't immediate and it didn’t raise concerns right away. Around that time the world was already becoming aware of the risks of radioactivity. The dials, covered in a special luminous paint, shone all the time and didn't require charging in sunlight. The story about the unfortunate radium victim came out in the Wall Street Journal under the title "The radium water worked fine until his jaw came off." Glamorous jobĪ century ago, in the early 1920s, glow-in-the-dark watches were an irresistible novelty. He’d been drinking a bottle of Radithor every day for years - and not surprisingly, died from it in 1932. American socialite and athlete Eben Byers acquired notoriety not for his sports achievements, but for how he died. 'Oops' is never good occupational health policy.This brings us to one of the most devastating effects of the radiation craze: The Radium Girls. "We really don't want our factory workers to be the guinea pigs for discovery. By the time World War II came around, the federal government had set basic safety limits for handling radiation.Īnd, she says, there are still lessons to be learned about how we protect people who work with new, untested substances. At 107 years old, she was one of the last of the radium girls.īlum says the radium girls had a profound impact on workplace regulations. You just don't know what to blame," she said. "I was left with different things, but I lived through them. There's no way to know if her time in the factory contributed. Over the years, she had some health problems - bad teeth, migraines, two bouts with cancer. In all, by 1927, more than 50 women had died as a direct result of radium paint poisoning.īut Keane was among the hundreds who survived. Radium,’ and we changed the name slightly.The whole story is a true story and the court case that the girls ultimately mounted against the company is a notorious case that is still used today in arguing cases of toxic chemical litigation. Many of them ended up using the money to pay for their own funerals. Interview Highlights: The true story behind the American Radium factory court case: The real company was ‘U.S. At a factory in New Jersey, the women sued the U.S. Their spines collapsed."ĭozens of women died. "There was one woman who the dentist went to pull a tooth and he pulled her entire jaw out when he did it," says Blum. The radium they had swallowed was eating their bones from the inside. By the mid-1920s, dial painters were falling ill by the dozens, afflicted with horrific diseases. "Of course, no one thought it was dangerous in these first couple of years," explains Deborah Blum, author of The Poisoner's Handbook. Twelve numbers per watch, upwards of 200 watches per day - and with every digit, the girls swallowed a little bit of radium. To get the numbers small enough, new hires were taught to do something called "lip pointing." After painting each number, they were to put the tip of the paintbrush between their lips to sharpen it. was hiring dial people to paint the tiny numbers onto watch faces for about 5 cents a watch. Radium wristwatches were manufactured right here in America, and the U.S. In the 1920s, a young working-class woman could land a job working with the miracle substance. Doctors used it to treat everything from colds to cancer. Radium was the latest miracle substance - an element that glowed and fizzed, which salesmen promised could extend people's lives, pump up their sex drive and make women more beautiful. EPA Expected to Issue Million-Year-Long RegulationĪnd it did seem magical.
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