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A Review of Epidemiologic Studies with Regard to Routes of Exposure to Toxicants
Published in Rhoda G. M. Wang, James B. Knaak, Howard I. Maibach, Health Risk Assessment, 2017
In the first major report on the health effects of exposure to ionizing radiation, which appeared in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 1925,58 Martland and colleagues noted cases of burns and dermatitis in radium chemists, aplastic anemia and cancers among radiologists, and osteomyelitis of the mandible among workers in luminous watch-dial factories. The skin of radium chemists was exposed to beta and gamma rays, while the bodies of radiologists were exposed to X-rays from sources used in the diagnosis of disease.59 In radium dial painters ingestion of paint containing 226Ra and 228Ra resulted from the habit of pointing the paint brush in the mouth; this lead to osteomyelitis of the jaw or “radium jaw”.
Evolution of Radiation Protection and Radiation Risk Concepts
Published in K. N. Govinda Rajan, Radiation Safety in Radiation Oncology, 2017
The frivolous use of radiation was not confined to X-rays. Radium too joined the list, as a wonder drug for general well-being and was used in many products from drinking water, to paste, to chocolates (Figure 3.3). The case of radium dial painters is well known. Young girls were employed to paint watch dials with self-luminous paint (containing radium) in a factory in New Jersey, around the 1920s. The women used to lick the tip of the brushes to make them a fine point and in the process ingested significant amounts of radium. This led to the so-called radium poisoning causing anemia, bone fractures, necrosis of the jaw (that came to be known as radium jaw), and cancer. Most of them died young and others suffered for a long time before their death. Radium (like calcium) concentrated in bones, causing leukemia, and in teeth, leading to their disintegration. A monument to the X-ray and radium martyrs of all nations, erected by the German X-ray Society in the garden of the St. Georg Hospital, Hamburg, in 1936, contains 159 names of the victims of overexposure.
Radionuclides in Foodstuffs and Food Raw Material
Published in Michael Pöschl, Leo M. L. Nollet, Radionuclide Concentrations in Food and the Environment, 2006
Pascal Froidevaux, Tony Dell, Paul Tossell
As a member of the 238U series, 226Ra is associated with uranium deposition, but, as a member of the alkaline earth group, its behavior is similar to that of calcium. Thus 226Ra can be transferred to food by similar mechanisms to calcium. 226Ra has been used throughout the 20th century. Its radiotoxicity was established in 1924, when dentist Theodore Blum noted the prevalence of “radium-jaw” disease among radium dial painters [16]. 226Ra used in industrial products may still be a source of environmental contamination (e.g., contaminated buildings, waste disposal). The petroleum industry is a major source of 226Ra dispersal to the environment [17]. In the geological process of oil formation, 226Ra, being slightly soluble, accumulates on the liquid phases of subsurface water formation. When brought to the surface, some 226Ra precipitates with barium sulfates and carbonates, yielding concentrated levels of radium in scales and sludges. Smith et al. [17] calculated that disposal of radioactive petroleum waste in municipal solid waste landfills would result in exposure to the public of a small fraction of the recommended 1 mSv/yr.
Radium dial workers: back to the future
Published in International Journal of Radiation Biology, 2022
Nicole E. Martinez, Derek W. Jokisch, Lawrence T. Dauer, Keith F. Eckerman, Ronald E. Goans, John D. Brockman, Sergey Y. Tolmachev, Maia Avtandilashvili, Michael T. Mumma, John D. Boice, Richard W. Leggett
It wasn’t until 1923 that Dr. Theodor Blum, a dentist in Orange, New Jersey, first publicly reported that osteomyelitis of the mandible and maxilla had occurred in a young painter of luminous dials, a condition termed ‘radium jaw’ (Blum 1924; Fry 1998), although Dr. Martin Szamatolski, consulting chemist for New Jersey Department of Labor, is often credited with the earliest written suspicion (January 1923) that radium was the source of this occupational disease (Stewart 1929; Sharpe 1978). Research on health effects of internal radium contamination began in earnest in the mid-1920s when unusual occurrences of bone and other conditions began appearing among New Jersey radium workers (Martland 1929; Martland and Humphries 1929; Aub et al. 1952; Rowland 1994; Stebbings 2001). A report by Harvard Medical School health and safety experts Drs. W.B. Castle, Katherine Drinker, and Cecil Drinker was written for USRC in June 1924 and published in 1925 despite objections from the company (Castle et al. 1925; Rowland 1994). This report was one of the first studies to link exposure to radium with blood changes and jaw necrosis observed in dial painters (Castle et al. 1925; Rowland 1994). Dr. Frederick Hoffman, a statistician by education, published independent observations the same year, concluding that detrimental effects observed in dial painters were most likely due to direct contact with radium in the paint via lip pointing, although effects were attributed to 228Ra (Hoffman 1925; Sharpe 1978). This assumption was seemingly based on the fact that, at the time, affected women were from USRC and believed to have painted with only 228Ra-containing paint, contrasted with other facilities using 226Ra paint. Ultimately this resulted in 228Ra no longer being used in dial paint (Stewart 1929), which is supported by the retrospective paint analysis mentioned above (Keane et al. 1994). Interestingly, one difference between facilities that had an impact on radium intake was the type of adhesive used. Compared to an oil-varnish adhesive, paint applied with a water-based adhesive usually resulted in more frequent lip-pointing as water tends to separate brush hairs and was also less objectionable to put in the mouth. Also, paint was easier to apply with a stylus of some kind (e.g. glass rod or metal pen) with oil-varnish adhesive, which is likely why European dial painters did not exhibit the same effects as early American dial painters (Stewart 1929, Sharpe 1978).