Re: Radiation martyrs - dial painters included?

[Muckerheide <muckerheide@mediaone.net>]

There would not likely have been dial painter osteosarcoma deaths in
1936. Early dial painter deaths were from acute medical conditions, esp.
bone necrosis, sometimes identified as a general systems collapse.
According to Macklis and Beresford, JAMA 1990, Eben Byers’ symptoms were
similar to dial painters, and his autopsy (1932 from ingesting 3-4
vials/day w/ 1 uCi each of Ra-226 and Ra-228 - confirmed) lists
“necrosis of the jaw, swollen kidney cortex, cerebral abscess,
hyperplastic regenerative bone marrow, and bronchopneumonia“. 

In the US radium dial painter data, Dr. Robert Rowland former director
of the Center for Human Radiobiology at Argonne National Laboratory,
states (1997) that: "Today we have a population of 2383 cases for whom
we have reliable body content measurements; they experienced 64 bone
sarcomas, none below 10 Gy. From this population we can draw a cohort
with similar age, sex, method of exposure and period of exposure, the
female dial workers. This cohort of 1530 women experienced 46 bone
sarcomas… No sarcomas appeared in the 1370 dial workers who accumulated
less than 10 Gy to the skeleton. No one who entered the dial painting
industry after 1925 has developed either of the radium induced tumors.
It was in 1925 that the request was made that dial painters were not to
tip their brushes with their mouths. The dial painting studios had no
rules for cleanliness, no attempts were made to clean up the spilled
radium, and of course there were no health physicists monitoring their
activities in those days. However, just the simple instruction, ‘Don’t
put the brush in your mouth’ was sufficient to stop completely the
induction of malignancies."

Note that 10 Gy was previously associated with an ingestion of 250 uCi
(20%, 50 uCi, retained). Revised skeletal retention factors as a
function of dose have been established that caused these estimates of
original ingestion to be revised. Rowland reports a systemic intake
threshold of about 3000kBq, producing a dose threshold at 15.4 Gy.

Regards, Jim Muckerheide
Radiation, Science, and Health
muckerheide@mediaone.net
==============================

"Björn Cedervall" wrote:
> 
> Radsafers,
> 
> Long ago I read somewhere that a stone was raised over the early
> radiation martyrs in 1936. This stone had the names of 169 people who
> became the victims of the early experiences (burns/cancers...). The
> place was probably Hamburg. My question is if any of you knows more
> about this and in particular if the early dial painters' deaths
> (mainly osteosarcomas I think) were included on the stone. I assume
> that the 169 names were to reflect the worldwide victims rather than
> only those of Germany. Any comments would be appreciated.
> 
> Sincerely Yours,
> 
> bjorn_cedervall@hotmail.com
> Depts. Medical Radiation Biology & Medical Radiation Physics,
> Karolinska Institutet, Box 260, S-171 76 Stockholm, Sweden
> Any opinions expressed above are those of mine and may not
> necessarily coincide with those of others.
> 
> 
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