Radium Girls

The Radium Girls were a group of factory workers who had suffered through their work a radiation poisoning. Their job was painting the dials of watches with fluorescent paint for the United States Radium Corporation in Orange ( New Jersey) from the year 1917.

The women took on a dangerous dose of radium, because she anleckten their brushes so that they could draw fine lines. They also painted their fingernails with the color. Many diseased so hard over the years. Although the harmfulness of radium was originally not known, but the conspicuous accumulation of diseases has been ignored for years and even covered up.

Five of these women sued their employer. The process is the precedent for workers who become ill through their work and sue their employer.

U.S. Radium Corporation

From 1917 to 1926, the company operated a plant for the extraction and concentration of radium from carnotite. So that phosphor ink was then produced, which was sold under the name Undark. In addition, the company was a major producer of watches with luminescent numerals for the military. The factory in New Jersey employed over a hundred workers, mainly women, to paint watches and instruments.

Exposition

The story of the Radium Girls is an important point in the development of radiology - especially radiation protection (health physics ) - and the workers' rights. The U.S. Radium Corporation initially hired about 70 women to perform various tasks, which meant contact with the radium. Meanwhile avoided the owners and competent scientists - in the consciousness of the danger - any contact with the substances. So the chemist used lead shields and masks for protection. It is estimated that about 4000 workers painted in companies in the U.S. and Canada watches with fluorescent paint.

The color was a mixture of cement, water, radium and zinc sulfide. Fine camel hair brush were then used to set the digits to paint on the watch. The pay was about 1.5 penny per clock, a worker managed around 250 watches per day. The brush lost after a few strokes to form, so the foreman advised the workers, with the tongue tip the brush again. In addition, the workers played with the color and painted fingernails, teeth and faces. Thus they shone to the surprise of their life companions at night.

Radiation sickness

Many of the women suffering from anemia, bone fractures and necrosis of the jaw, which later became known as radium jaw. It is assumed that the x-ray devices of the investigating physicians have contributed to a further aggravation. It also turned out that one of the studies was a scam at least that was started by the defenders of the company. U.S. Radium and other companies denied any connection between the illness of the workers and the radium. For a time kept the participating dentists, doctors and other scientists to pressure from the companies their data back. Pathologists were pressured to return the death of the workers to other causes; Syphilis was a welcome attempt of used, equal to undermine the reputation of women.

Importance

The story differs from other such incidents through an intensive observation by the media, which also resulted in a conviction of those responsible.

Grace Fryer was the first worker to sue decided, but it took two years to find a lawyer who was willing to take the case. Ultimately, five workers were ready to sue. The allegations and the media hype about this case led to the precedent and regulations on workplace safety, including the term Proven suffering (org: provable suffering ).

Effects

With this case, the right of the individual worker was established to sue the company if the work is sickening. As a result of the process, the safety standards of the industry have been significantly improved.

The trial ended in the spring of 1928 with a comparison. Received each of the Radium Girls 10,000 U.S. $ ( taking inflation into account, this corresponds to today 141 387 U.S. $, which corresponds to € 103,029 on current exchange rate ) this came with a lifetime annual pension of $ 600, and for all expenses for doctors and lawyers.

Science

In 1933 Robley D. Evans made ​​the first measurements of radon and radium in the excretions of workers. At MIT, he collected data for 27 workers. This information was the basis for the 1941 National Bureau of Standards to determine the limits for radium: 0.1 microcurie (about 3.7 kilobecquerels ).

In 1968 the Center for Human Radiobiology was established at Argonne National Laboratory. His job was primarily to further medical examination of the surviving workers. The project collected all available information and in some cases, tissue samples of the workers. When the project was completed in 1993, had been gathered detailed information of 2403 people. The samples are kept at the National Human Radio Biological Tissue Repository.

One result was that they found no symptoms in workers who have up to 1000-fold concentration of radium compared to non- exposed workers. This indicates a threshold for radium poisoning.

In film and literature

The history of the workers was processed in the poem Radium Girls by Eleanor Swanson. It is also in her collection A Thousand Bonds: Marie Curie and the Discovery included of radium in 2003.

The author DW Gregory told the story of the Radium Girls in his award-winning play Radium Girls. It had in 2000 premiere in Playwrights Theatre of New Jersey in Madison (New Jersey).

There is a detailed description of Kurt Vonnegut 's novel Jailbird.

The poet Lavinia Greenlaw edited the theme in her poem The Innocence of Radium ( Night Photographer, 1994).

In the documentary series "1000 Ways to bite the dust " is the fate of the Radium Girls in the history portrayed "# 196 Deadly lighting ".