The Radium Girls

How tragic !
https://www.buzzfeed.com/authorkatem...z1R#.sh40041wk

Re: The Radium Girls

Yes, the World went crazy for radium in those days

On a similar vein, the many X-ray technicians during WWI, who took numerous X-rays with no personal protection. Then the girls who worked with phosphorus making matches, then the girls who packed gas-masks with asbestors fibres on WWII.....

In the current era, I see that a dead whale washed ashore in Scotland last week was found to have astonishing levels of the chemical 'PCB' in it. The PCB's were banned years ago, but were previously used in massive quantities and take huge spans of time to break down; they're in the food chain now!

Re: The Radium Girls

A good example of this was the radiologist featured in that excellent film 'Casualty 1906', a drama-documentary of the work of the London Hospital who, despite being in full knowledge of the effects of ionising radiation, continued to put himself in harm's way for years and, as a consequence, lost both of his hands.

Soon afterwards, however, the dangers became widely recognised and precautions were taken:

No, despite the appearances, this is not a joke. Men would wear lead-rubber overalls, gloves and even a helmet with lead-glass eyepieces!

What I found interesting was that these 'clothes' were obviously designed to be worn routinely throughout the hours of duty, as rank insignia are affixed to the arms.

It looks particularly uncomfortable and the poor guy would have been bathing in sweat after a few hours.

Re: The Radium Girls

That is sad and these days people complain about health and safety at work, but this is sort of thing it stopped.

Re: The Radium Girls

In fairness, in the early days the dangers were not fully understood by many.

Of course, I read that the money-grabbing owners of that company were willing to deny the dangers for their own gain. Nowadays they would have been prosecuted severely.

Re: The Radium Girls

I can remember my grandads fight against pesticides in the 60s and 70s, many employers knew the dangers but chose to ignore them. I think if they could still get away with it many would.