―――――――― Harmful Inaction ――――――――
Dangerous Working Conditions
Dial-painters working in a factory (National Institute of Standards and Technology)
Despite evidence concluding that radium exposure had harmful effects, the USRC exposed its dial-painters to unhealthful levels of radium and perpetuated hazardous conditions.
USRC Factory
(United States Radium Corporation, 422-432 Alden Street, Orange, Essex County, NJ)
1917: Residents of Orange County, NJ report toxic fumes permeating from the USRC factory.
“Residents of the northern section of the city claimed that what seemed to be clouds of
steam coming from the plant were acid fumes.” (Necrosis Cases Declared Growing.)
- Newark Evening News June 20, 1925
Scientists Cecil Drinker and William Castle conducted an experiment to test the radiation levels in the USRC. Safe levels of radium fogged dental films in two weeks, but:
Excerpt from Drinker Report
(Castle, William, et al.)
Orange NJ dial-painters
(A Copy of a Photograph of the "Radium Girls" Who Worked at the U.S. Radium Corporation in Orange, circa 1922 or 1923.)
In that same experiment, Drinker and Castle mentioned how the dial-painters and their facilities were coated in radium dust:
“The hair, faces, hands, arms, necks, the dresses, the underclothes, even the corsets, of the dial painters were luminous. One of the girls showed luminous spots on her legs and thighs. The back of another was luminous almost to her waist. Dust from the machine shop below the painting room was luminous, and the same property was exhibited by office girls and by others about the plant not employed in the paint room.” (Drinker, Cecil K., et al. "Necrosis of the Jaw in Workers Employed in Applying a Luminous Paint Containing Radium.")
- Cecil Drinker and Associates
Chief Medical Examiner of Essex Country Harrison Martland corroborated Cecil’s findings:
“I found that the United States Radium Corporation had
exposed a number of its employees to
radioactive substances and had
impregnated them with said substances in the
course of their occupation.” (Berry, Raymond. "Raymond Berry Micro Reel 1.")
- Dr. Martland’s Testimony
