![]() 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 was direct contact with the residues of still liquid paint with some minor ingestion. The only reason the 'Radium Girls' became victims was because they developed the habit of licking the tiny brushes to fine up the point. 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. Ive never heard of any cancer being traced to wearing a watch with a radium dial. 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. This brings us to one of the most devastating effects of the radiation craze: The Radium Girls.
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