![]() This didn't help those who were sick, since their bones couldn't be removed and tested, so work began in earnest to develop additional tests. During the autopsy, the victim's bones were reduced to ashes so that they could be tested with an electrometer, and radium poisoning was officially diagnosed for the first time. No one had listened to the female dial painters, but the death of a male scientist was more difficult to ignore. The first test for diagnosing radium poisoning was developed after a male employee of US Radium Corp died. Workers' Compensation laws were in early stages in the states where they existed at all, so most women and their families struggled with medical bills and loss of income as well as the illness itself. This wide variety of symptoms and illnesses provided companies utilizing radium to argue that there was no single illness - no such thing as radium poisoning. If the early symptoms did not prove fatal, the women started developing tumors and cancers that left them infertile, required amputations, or caused their bodies to simply waste away. Broken and disintegrating bones left some bedridden and others in stiff braces to hold their spines in place. It was eventually discovered that radium took calcium's place in the women's bones, making them fragile and radioactive. Several women eventually died from so much of their mouths rotting away that they bled to death.īedside hearing of Catherine Donohue - 1938 They noticed loose teeth that eventually fell out, leaving behind sores that wouldn't heal. ![]() Girls in their teens and twenties working in dial painting studios started suffering from fatigue, headaches, digestive issues, and pain in their joints, but one of the worst symptoms of radium poisoning affected their mouths and jaws. They would point the tips of their paintbrushes with their lips to complete the fine work, and, all the while, they were introducing fatal poison to their systems. One of the populations hardest hit was young, working-class women who worked as dial painters, using radium infused paint to make clock faces and other instrument dials glow in the dark. Dozens of deaths were attributed to other diseases and conditions for years before the truth was accepted. Few wanted to be the one to speak out against a well-paying company like those that worked with radium.Īnother factor was the problem with diagnosing radium poisoning. While the 1920's were roaring, the 1930's saw families and entire communities suffering. Partly because the worst effects of radium poisoning became evident between the World Wars. How were they able to get away with such a thing?ĭial painters at Luminous Processes - 1939 Even when radium was known to be dangerous, those who profited from it hid the truth at the expense of many lives. However, the more significant barrier to overcome was corporate greed. The first challenge was realizing that radium was, in fact, harmful when it had been initially lauded as a miracle cure-all. The challenge of diagnosing radium poisoning caused the suffering of those who worked with it to go on for decades and enabled companies to avoid liability for its deadly impact. ![]()
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