radium dial painters

[JMUCKERHEIDE@delphi.com]

 From:
> Date: Fri, 08 Nov 1996 08:54:45 -0600
> From: Bruce Busby <bbusby@umich.edu>
> Subject: radium dial painters

Very good Bruce. Note also that Robley Evans, until his death (12/31/95),
expressed outrage of promulgating the "linear model" contrary to the
scientific evidence, especially of both the epidemiology and the biology of
the radium-burden population, and the killing of the Center for Human
Radiobiology radium population program by DOE, eliminating the evidence. He
stood by his indictment of BEIR in his 1974 HPJ article "Radium in Man". All
should read that article scientifically indicting the non-science. 

Thanks.

Regards, Jim Muckerheide
jmuckerheide@delphi.com
Radiation, Science, and Health
======================================
>  From Environmental Radioactivity from Natural, Industrial and Military
>  Sources. Merril Eisenbud. Academic  Press, Inc. ~3rd edition, chapter 3
> 
>  Quote:
> 
>  "During and immediately following World War I, the use of
>  radium in luminous paints was attended by hazards arising out of
>  ignorance of the effects of this radioelement when inhaled or ingested
>  (Martland, 1951; Evans et al., 1969).  Among a total population of about
>  3000 luminous dial workers in the United States, a total of 63 cases of
>  bone cancer are known to have occurred (Rowland et al.,1983).  These
>  workers, mostly women, ingested radium because of the practice of using
>  the lips to point the paint brushes (NAS-NRC,1990). The dial-painting
>  cases have been studied thoroughly by a number of investigators, but the
>  main credit belongs to Evans for having worked out the basic biophysical
>  principles of radium injury in sufficient detail so that safe practices
>  could be adopted. These practices proved effective not only for
>  protection against radium but also against many of the hazards that 
>  developed later in the atomic energy industry, where the information
>  gained with radium was utilized to great advantage. In the first 40 years
>  of this century only about 1 kg of radium was extracted from the earth's
>  crust and at least 100 people died from various misuses of this material.
>  In contrast,since 1942 the atomic energy programs have produced the
>  radioactive equivalent of many tons of radium, and have done so with an
>  excellent record of safety, except in the mining of uranium."
>  
>  End quote