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OKAY BACK FROM THE COURTHOUSE ⚖️

Dial Painters Used Their Lips To Point Brushes Dipped In Radium Paint

That Habit Led To High Intakes Of Radium

Painters Then Presented With A Condition Called Radium Jaw

In May 1927 A Young Lawyer Named Raymond Berry Filed A Lawsuit

The Suit Was Against The US Radium Corporation In New Jersey

It Was For The Dial Painter Grace Fryer And Four Coworkers

Two Were Younger Sisters Of Amelia Maggia Who Died In 1922

Her Body Was Exhumed In 1927 And Found To Contain Radium

The Amount Was About 500 Times The Limit Later Set For The Body

A Physicist Named Elizabeth Hughes Worked As An Expert For Berry

She Tested The Breath Of The Five Plaintiffs For Radon

Hughes Said Her Positive Readings Were Qualitative Indicators

In April 1928 The Company Required The Women To Be Examined

Company Experts Found No Evidence Of Radium In Them

Medical Examiner Harrison Martland Reported Another Test By Hughes

It Found Alpha Particles In The Breath Of All Five

After An April 1928 Hearing The Company Asked For A Summer Delay

The Press Condemned The Company For Stalling Until The Women Died

Federal Judge William Clark Brokered A Settlement In June 1928

The Settlement Gave Substantial Funds To The Seriously Ill Women

Even So The Company Did Not Admit Liability For Their Illnesses

Berry Later Noted Clark Had Some Financial Interests In The Company

In November 1928 The Company Tested The Five Women Once More

It Was Trying To Prove They Were Not Contaminated With Radium

Medical Physicist Gioacchino Failla Assisted With Those Tests

He Pronounced That All Five Were Radioactive

Dial Painters Were Tested Through The 1920s And Early 1930s

Those Tests Were Used To Set Maximum Body Burdens

A Body Burden Is The Amount Of Radium Remaining In The Body

The Limits Applied To Radioactive Substances That Emit Alpha Particles

Robley Evans Was A Physicist Who Studied Radium Poisoning

In 1937 He Linked Radium In The Body To Radon In The Breath

Federal Guidance On Radiation Protection Was Issued As Handbooks

The Commerce Department Published Handbook 27 In May 1941

It Drew On The Results Of A Decade Of Research By Evans

By Then The Main Hazards From Radium Were Understood

They Were Gamma Rays From Outside And Inhaled Radon And Radium Dust

The Third Was Swallowing Radium Through Unsanitary Practices

Alone Or Together These Hazards Could Lead To Aplastic Anemia

They Could Also Lead To Jaw Necrosis And Osteosarcomas Among Others

The Handbook Committee Included Evans And Failla

It Proposed A Limit Of 0.1 Micrograms

That Was The Body Burden Limit For Radium 226

Nine Men Prepared That Handbook And Agreed On A Tolerance Level

They Chose A Level They Would Accept For Their Own Wives And Daughters

That Reasoning Was Left Out Of The Published Guidance

The Dial Painter Research Was Then Applied To Plutonium 239 Standards

That Plutonium Came From The Manhattan Project

The Painters' Experience Also Affected Protection In That Project

Lip Pointing Had Largely Stopped By The Late 1920s

Dial Painting Went On With Stricter Protective Measures

It Continued Until Other Radioactive Sources Were Identified

Safer Practices Reduced Radium Hazards But Did Not Eliminate Them

Dial Painters Had Late Effects After Lip Pointing Stopped

The Atomic Energy Commission Monitored Many Into The Late 1950s

Later The US Department Of Energy Continued That Work

In The Early 1990s The Radium Study Program Was Ended

Shifting Responsibilities And Declining Funding Were The Reasons

Researchers Have Begun Updating The Dial Worker Study

It Is Part Of The Million Person Study Of Low Dose Health Effects

That Larger Study Looks At Radiation Risks In Workers And Veterans

The Dial Worker Part Covers 3,276 Painters And Handlers

All Of Them Were Employed Before 1950

The Update Is Tracing Their Causes Of Death Through 2019

Before That Update The Last Follow Up Was Over 30 Years Earlier

Most Of The Workers Were Still Alive At That Time

The Study Is Called One Of The Most Important Of Its Kind

A Federal Dataset Covers About 6,000 People Exposed To Radium

It Includes Radium Patients And People Who Drank Radium Water

Work On The Dial Workers Formed The Basis For Protection Standards

Those Cover Intakes Of Radionuclides By Workers And The Public