Marie Curie

[JMUCKERHEIDE@delphi.com]

Paul,

I should have re-read her biography (1938 by Doubleday, Sheehan translation
with a 1937 (c), presumably in French  :-)  rather than "from memory",
including distinguishing her start in science "in her early 20's" vs the start 
of the separation work - which I knew and should have caught from her age at
death. 

Please understand that I have no doubt that her death, and her long poor
health, were radiation-related (and almost referred to her hands and her long
anemia here), but of course my point is that her exposure was in the thousands 
of rad (including separating _grams_ of radium in the shed, that glowed and
with enough light to read by, in the last 2 years or so, even though, as you
note, she produced just a decigram of "pure" radium that they needed in order
to satisfy the chemists -- surely you don't mean to imply that she was only
working with/exposed to a decigram -- be pretty hard to read by   :-),  plus
her radiology experience in the war, and her other working years with radium. 

And of course, the real point is the ludicrous characterization that because
Marie Curie is a "radiation victim", we should be concerned about radiation
below a rem (or, most specifically recently, we should not even build
engineered vaults for LLW at costs now exceeding $1billion, and will probably
exceed $2billion).  This kind of ignorance ("innumeracy") is to the fore,
aided and abetted by government failing to provide valid information, and even 
creating and fostering those public fears. 

Like FDA using Eben Byers' overdose death (bone necrosis) from ingesting of
5-10mCi Ra-226 equivalent, to get authority to protect the public from
radiation, failing to report on the population that had ingested Radithor
(nominally ~3.5 uCi Ra-226 eq/vial) and other rad sources when no consequences 
to the exposed public could be found, eventually leading to, eg, 2nCi/yr
drinking water limits. 

And this though US and world radium-burden populations have 0 (zero) effects
in 1000's of cases below 250 uCi ingestion (with a valid log-normal projection 
in the young women dial-painters to ~100 uCi [estimated from Thomas 1994 re
dose-equivalence]).  Rowland recently summarized the government-terminated
radium population program with more than 1000 cases still alive [ANL Report
1994], (300 copies printed, no announcement,  unlike the J. Nat. Cancer Inst.
dishonest "study" on radon effects that just made every newspaper and NPR
radio station in the US) 

Rowland notes that these ingestion estimates are low due to revised bases on
biological clearance rates. But of course the government doesn't want to know
those answers. It would rather spend $10 million on a Hanford Thyroid Effects
study that has no scientific possibility of finding any effect, except to
succeed in its primary mission of engendering public fears of radiation. (And
then there's the part of the "science community" that sees $10million as a
valid objective. "You get $10million if you can "justify"/rationalize doing
the study; you get nothing if you can't. You don't get to use $10M to do good
science, or to choose the most important science to do.") 

> Some history:
> 
> Buried at the end of a long summary from Jim Muckerheide of what
> appeared to be a 1954 preliminary study on animals were some comments

Not my summary, verbatim Abstract and Summary from Lorenz' report.

"Preliminary" only re the wide dose rate range, and the "retrospective" aspect 
of reporting  the Manhattan Project literature (this documents/refers to a
1946 report from experiments started in 1941), and the reviews of related
studies in the '20s and '30s. 

They were otherwise valid and complete science experiments (through 5-6
generations at 10 r/yr, 40 r/yr, 400 r/yr, but sterile at 4.4 r/day -- though
small populations). To be studiously ignored by the data manipulators. 

Of course, subsequent experiments dropped the 10 r/yr group since it was too
low to be considered for long-term population studies (though the studies
included addressing hereditary changes because of the lack of threshold for
chromosomal changes). 

The 40 r/yr became the general "baseline" because there were essentially no
effects in long-term studies at this level (though, of course, they had
generally better health and longevity vs.  "controls", which was generally
ignored since the researchers KNEW FROM EXPERIENCE WITH ACTUAL DATA a
self-evident threshold. But their focus was on occupational exposure limits 
-- even to the extent of shifting dose/day from 24-hour days to 8-hr days (yet 
still tending to state that radiation is "destructive" and carcinogenic, being 
from NCI and all, though they explained responses at high dose rates not
evident at the same dose at lower dose rates as the effect of overwhelming the 
repair process). 

In the first report on the study on mice, Lorenz notes that the improved
longevity is probably anomolous -- memory again, let me know of you want more
precise quote -- but then choses to ignore the fact in later studies that
continue to show such (consistent?) anomolies (like the guinea pigs' increased 
mean survival times at 0.11 r/day near 10%, and the text saying (something
like), "and there was no decrease in longevity at 0.11 r/day".  :-) 

Later experiments on long-term whole body irradiation on sterility, mutations, 
and genetic changes were done _only_ at 4.4 r/day and 8.8 r/day  :-)  (though
they compared dose/8-hour day to dose/24-hour day !)  Also, they found no
genetic changes from males at 1100 r (8.8r/day) and females at 760 r (8.8
r/day)  [higher dose to females made them sterile -- hard to find genetic
changes in offspring  :-) ] 

Oh well,  back to work......

Regards, Jim Muckerheide (for "Radiation, Science, & Health")


> about Marie Curie that I would like to comment on.
> 
> >What about Eve Curie's 1938 biography of her mother describing her 4
> >years, starting in her early 20's (1898), in the shed separating
> >grams of radium from tons of uranium ore slag, with the wonderful 
> 
> Several errors of fact here. First, it was a 1937 biography.  Marie
> was born in 1867, she would have been at least 30 by 1898, not in her
> early 20s. From Eve's biography's chapter entitled "Four Years in a
> Shed" p 175 (1938 printing): "In 1902, forty-five months after
> ....she suceeded in preparing a decigram of pure radium" The
> reference is to a decigram, not "grams". 
> 
> >And then listen to anti's foster public fear using Marie Curie as a
> >"radiation victim", as she died of presumed perniscious aplastic
> >anemia in another 16 years, in 1934 at age 66. 
> 
> Is there is any doubt her death was radiation-related? Its worth
> noting that her daughter Eve, who didn't work with radiation, is
> still alive and in her 90's while Maries other daughter Irene, who
> did work with radioactivity, died in her 50's of leukemia. 
> Throughout their lives Marie, Pierre and Irene lived in a state of
> continuous ill health. It was so constant that she was routinely
> accused of using her ill health as an tactic to get her way in
> scientific meetings and discussions. Marie incessantly rubbed her
> fingers because of the radiation damage to them, she had cataracts,
> she routinely had her blood analyzed, was almost constantly fatigued
> and made numerous visits to a santorium to regain her strength. 
> Furthermore there were several deaths in her laboratory ca 1920 from
> what I believe was the same type of "presumed aplastic anemia"
> Ironically, one of these (Cotelle), a woman, was Polish like Marie. 
> 
> Paul Frame
> Professional Training Programs
> ORISE
> framep@orau.gov
> 
>