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HISTORIAN TRACES PLIGHT OF THE 'RADIUM GIRLS'

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

SOURCE: Claudia Clark, (517) 774-3454

By Mike Silverthorn

HISTORIAN TRACES PLIGHT OF THE 'RADIUM GIRLS'

MOUNT PLEASANT, Mich.--The federal government's recent attempts to settle
claims relating to human radiation experiments during the Cold War
doesn't address the problems of radium poisoning that occurred during
the years before World War II.

The plight of a group of women known as the "radium girls," who from 1910
to 1935 found themselves among the first victims of radium poisoning,
is the subject of a new book by Central Michigan University history
professor Claudia Clark.

The women, hired to apply luminous, radium-laced paint to watch faces
and instrument dials, developed mysterious, often fatal diseases that
they traced to conditions in the workplace.

"These women at first had no idea that the tedious task of dialpainting
was any different from other factory jobs available to them," said
Clark. "Their fight to have their symptoms recognized as an industrial
disease represents an important chapter in the history of modern
health and labor policy.

"It's a very dramatic story involving companies hiring experts to
cover up the issues, other people working to reveal what was being
covered up, and a group of women trying desperately to gain control
of their own lives," she said.

Soon after radium was discovered by Marie Curie in 1898, doctors and
chemical companies attempted to create a health market for radium
despite evidence of its dangers, said Clark. Radium was first seen
as a remedy for rheumatoid arthritis and joint diseases and later
as a treatment for wrinkles, gout, impotence, diabetes and other
ailments.

By 1917, American companies were producing radium as a luminous
agent for watches. By 1923, employees were dying from radium
poisoning, said Clark.

The government's "discovery" of radium poisoning, however, was slow
in coming, despite the efforts of the factory workers who "campaigned
for the recognition, compensation and prevention of industrial
radium poisoning," she said. Newspapers dubbed the workers
"radium girls."

"This is really a story of who had power in early 20th century America,"
said Clark. "When rich consumers got sick, the federal government
passed regulations. But the working class women who worked in the
radium factories got no attention until they were allied with the
reform-minded, middle class women of the Consumers' League, who
pulled strings to make radium poisoning known.

"Their plight poses the question: Who has social authority to bring
social problems to public knowledge?" she said.

In her book, Clark describes the social and political factors that
influenced the responses of the workers, managers, government officials,
medical specialists and legal authorities involved in the case.
She also explores contemporary disputes over workplace control,
government intervention and industry-backed medical research.

"People still die of occupational diseases," said Clark. "Workplace
conditions continue to be a leading source of disease and death."

Clark specializes in the history of modern health and labor policy.
Her book, "Radium Girls: Women and Industrial Health Reform,
1910-1935," was published by the University of North Carolina Press.

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