American Journal of Epidemiology Vol. 155, No. 3 : 290-291
Copyright © 2002 by The Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health
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Deadly Glow: The Radium Dial Worker Tragedy
School of Public Health University of California Berkeley, CA 94720
Most epidemiologists are conversant with the major American epidemiologic "events" of the 20th century, namely, the poliomyelitis epidemic of 1916, the influenza pandemic of 1918–1919, the ischemic heart disease and lung cancer epidemics of the last half of the 20th century, and the pandemic of human immunodeficiency virus/acquired immunodeficiency syndrome that began in the 1980s and continues into the 21st century. However, there are many "lesser," but still important occurrences about which many may wish to be informed. Such an event is the saga of the radium dial painters, aptly chronicled by Ross Mullner in the book, Deadly Glow: The Radium Dial Worker Tragedy, appropriately published by the American Public Health Association.
The saga began shortly after the discovery of radium by Marie and Pierre Curie. The Curies had observed with "amazement and delight" that their newly found element (for which they shared the 1903 Nobel Prize in physics with Henri Becquerel, who had already discovered the radioactivity of elemental uranium) glowed in the dark! This property of radium was soon exploited. In 1902, the American electrical engineer William J. Hammer, using minute amounts of radium, invented a paint that could be used to treat watches and scientific instruments so they could be read in the dark. Because of the high cost of radium, $225,000 an ounce, Hammer did not pursue the commercial potential of his discovery in America. However, in Europe, particularly in Switzerland, radium-painted watch dials rapidly became popular. In 1914, the first major company to manufacture radium-painted dials in America was established in Newark, New Jersey.
Entry of the United States into the First World War in 1917 created a huge demand for a wide variety of radium-treated devices and the workers to manufacture them. Large numbers of young women were employed as dial painters, and they applied radium paint with a fine-tipped brush. Because workers were paid on a piecework basis, it was common to tip or point brushes with the tongue to facilitate application of the paint. Over time, this practice could result in substantial absorption of radium. It became apparent during the 1920s that many dial painters were dying prematurely and were suffering from a variety of acute and chronic diseases. Particularly frightening was the frequency of disfiguring cancers and osteomyelitis of the upper and lower jaw.
Although not the first to propose a causal association between the dial painters' diseases and their exposure to radium, it was physician and forensic pathologist Harrison S. Martland, chief medical examiner of Essex County, New Jersey, who carried out the most extensive clinical investigations of affected dial painters and established the cause of their afflictions as "radium poisoning." Epidemiologic investigations by a Harvard University team led by physiologist Cecil K. Drinker and another independent investigation by statistician Frederick L. Hoffman, previous president of the American Statistical Association, provided overwhelming support for the causal role of radium poisoning. Nevertheless, no one knows how many dial painters succumbed to radium poisoning. A few hundred deaths have been documented, as noted in Mullner's book. Considering the large number of workers employed in dial painting, the number must have been substantial. Mullner noted that the last death of a documented dial worker occurred in 1983.
Several chapters of this book report the efforts of individual persons and of groups of affected workers to obtain compensation for their diseases. Although a few paltry settlements were recorded, litigation was largely ineffectual. The denial of culpability by the radium dial industry presaged the tactics and strategies of the tobacco industry in denying the adverse effects of cigarette smoking. However, the plight of the radium dial painters did not go totally unheeded. It aroused considerable public outcry and certainly influenced the establishment of standards for industrial exposure to ionizing radiation.
The saga of the radium dial painters, as told by Ross Mullner, is effectively placed in the context of the discovery and development of radium therapy, radium quackery, and the development of the atomic bomb. The chapter entitled, "The National Radium Scandal," which documents the use of radium "tonics" and the horrible consequences of their use, is particularly chilling.
The book is copiously illustrated. The saga of the dial painters is based largely on case studies, and the amount of epidemiologic data is minimal. Nevertheless, Deadly Glow will provide epidemiologists with a full understanding of this important event in epidemic history.
NOTES
ISBN 0-87553-246-2, American Public Health Association, Washington, DC (Telephone: 202-777-APHA, Fax: 202-777-2534), 1999, 192 pp., soft cover $22 (APHA members), $32 (nonmembers)
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