The last epidemiologic follow-up was 30 years ago when most of these workers were still alive. The mortality experience of 3,276 radium dial painters and handlers employed between 1913-1949 is being determined through 2019. The dial workers study has formed the basis for radiation protection standards for intakes of radionuclides by workers and the public. The tragic experience of the dial painters had a significant impact on industrial safety standards, including protection measures taken during the Manhattan Project. more » Dial painters were primarily women and, prior to the mid to late 1920s, would use their lips to give the brush a fine point, resulting in high intakes of radium. Workers involved with the painting of dials and instruments included painters, handlers, ancillary workers, and chemists who fabricated the paint. The discoveries of radiation and radioactivity led quickly to medical and commercial applications at the turn of the 20th century, including the development of radioluminescent paint, made by combining radium with phosphorescent material and adhesive. This report reviews the history of the radium dial workers in the United States, summarizes the scientific progress made since the last evaluation in the early 1990s, and discusses current progress in updating the epidemiologic cohort and applying new dosimetric models for radiation risk assessment. This document is written as a brief summary of current knowledge accumulated in this incomplete study. The study has now been terminated, even though more than 1,000 subjects with measured radium burdens are still alive. The Argonne study is the largest every undertaken of the effects on humans of an internally deposited radioelement, in which the insult has been quantitated by actual measurements of the retained radioisotope. Nevertheless, great gaps remain in the knowledge of radium toxicity. As a consequence of the efforts made to locate, measure, and follow exposed individuals, a great deal of information about the effects of radium is available. Some of this group have been located and followed until death in these cases the cause of death is known without a body content measurement. Many more individuals acquired radium internally but were never measured. Some 2,400 subjects have had their body contents of radium measured, and a majority of them have been followed for most of their adult lives, to understand and quantify the effects of radium. The effects of internally deposited radium in humans have more » been studied in this country for more than 75 years. The extensive references included will allow the interested reader to find additional information. Further, because the Argonne studies were not the only such efforts, brief overviews of the other radium programs are included. It soon became evident, however, that to document the widespread use of radium, a brief review of the application of radium in medicine and in the US dial painting industry is required. ![]() ![]() This document was originally conceived as a description of the radium studies that took place at Argonne National Laboratory. For each case the route of exposure, the dates of exposure, the years of birth and death, the measured body content, the calculated more » intake and dose, and the cause of death have been listed. The appendix to this review lists all of the measured radium cases, a total of 2,403 individuals whose records were in the files at the end of 1990. This document now addresses these topics, in order to give an overall picture of what might be called the radium era, that period from the early part of this century, when radium was rapidly exploited as a tool and a medication, to the present time, when radium is not generally used and the study of its effects has been terminated. Such an approach would also ignore contributions to the study of radium effects made at other laboratories. However, it soon became obvious that this was a very limited approach, because such a compilation would include no background on the widespread uses of radium in industry and in the medical profession, nor would it address the early history of the discovery of the hazards of radium. This document was originally conceived as a compilation of activities at Argonne National Laboratory that were directed toward the study of radium in humans.
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