OR estimates of the danger
of strontium-90, fission pro-
duct from H-bomb tests, ex-
perts have had to rely largely
on a “story three decades long”
—the tragic fate which over-
took a group of young women
who worked as radium watch
and clock dial painters. This
is revealed by Dr, Philip Mor-
rison, nuclear expert, in an
article in Monthly Review
which was reprinted in the
January, 1957, issue of North-
eastern Union Farmer.

Dr. Morrison, who is describ-
ed by the farm publication as
“one of the scientists who
made the atom bomb possible
and . . . a world renowned
authority on the subject,” says
that Adlai Stevenson has
brought to widespread atten-
tion the danger of strontium-
90, which Morrison himself
considers “probably the most
important” of fall-out hazards.

“How much of such (radio-
active) fall-out from atomic
tests can be tolerated as a
burden on the public health
of the world?” he asks.

And he tells the story of
three decads ago which was,
he says, the basis for estimates
of a safe burden.

When the First’ World War
cut off U.S. imports of Swiss
and German -watches and
clocks, he writes, American
dial painting experienced a
sharp boom.

“A factory in Orange, NJ,
a leading firm in the trade.
hired a couple of hundred
young women, mostly teen-
agers, to work at piece rates
to paint over printed dial
numbers with luminous com-
pound.

“The work was not hard,
and paid war wages to girls of
the Newark area who went
to the plant. They sat at long
benches, rapidly painting the
numbers with small camel’s
hair brushes, frequently draw-
ing the brush tips between
their lips to point theme neat-
ly.”

The self-luminous paint,
which required only about one
part of radium salt! to 50,000
of inert crystals to yield a

‘bright glow, owed its glow,

Morrison continues, to the fact
that “within it, energy releas-
ed by radioactive decay caus-
ed the crystals of the paint
to emit scintillations.”

It had been known that
radium would do this-since the
“early days of the Curies,”
discoverers of radium.

“The turnover of these girls
was high, they.were not steady
workers. But a fraction of

Their doom
was a warning

By VIRGINIA GARDNER

them worked at the job well
and long. These regular dial
painters, young girls in a clean
factory, deftly marking’ fig-
ures, were to be counted
among the dead and wounded
of World War I. Their cas-
ualty rate was higher than
that of the AEF... .”

Morrison notes that in the
first 15 years after painting
the dials they died, “victims
of radioactive poisoning, the
first ones studied by science
and the very cases on which
the estimates of fall-out dan-
der today still rest.”

Not until 1924, says Mor-
rison, did the Orange plant
attract unfavorable attention
in its neighborhood “because
quite a few of the girls who
had worked there were curi-
ously ill with severe infec-
tions of the bones and jaw,
infections which did not heal.”

The Consumers’ League of
the Oranges asked the state

Concluded

to investigate, but the state
found nothing wrong.

An industrial physician was
asked by the league to in-
vestigate to see if they could
obtain compensation under
state law. He felt convinced
the ill and dying girls were in-
jJured at work, but was puzzl-
ea as to how.

“Finally, the pathologist
Harrison Martland, chief medi-
cal examiner for Essex Coun-
ty, began a series of studies
which remain classic in medi-
cal history.”

6

By measuring radioactivity
from the bones of dead girls,
and in the breath of the ill
ones, he found they had in-
gested radioactive material as
they pointed the brushes with
their dips,

“Incurable anemias and de-
stroyed bones of the jaw caus-
ed the first deaths, in girls
heavily contaminated with

\

FLIGHT TO MARS

today that we completed the
repairs to her — the damage
she sustained on landing was
quite extensive.

MARS, OCTOBER 5

There is no water in the
“Etrurian Sea,” “Aurora Bay”
and other Martian “lakes.”
There is no water either in our
“Sun Lake” although the
ground there is more moist
than on the “continents.”

We have spent the fall
searching for underground
water. It is easy to drill here:
Martian soil is much softer
than on Earth.

But the water sources we
came across were soon ex-
hausted. At present there is
not even sufficient for the
crew.

MARS, OCTOBER 15

A stroke of luck! The winter
coloring of Mars is not caused
by the discoloration of salts nor
frozen carbonic acid gas, as
some astronomers have claim-
ed —but common or garden
snow.

Winter will last another 160
days. Outside the ship the
thermometer registers 145 de-
grees of frost, even though we
are near the Martian equator!

The South Polar “cap” will
evidently come over half way
to the equator this year — the
effect of the planet’s distance
from the Sun,

MARS, NOVEMBER 24

Everywhere possible we are
gathering lumps of the lace-
thin ice which covers the
ground. On it rest all our
hopes of water.

The Sun now lies between
us and Earth and so for the
past few days our radio has
been able to pick up only
noises and crackling.

MARS, DECEMBER 22

The Earth is again “in line!”
How glad we are to hear the
voice from home!

We learned that the MK-3
Squadron of eight space-ships
has been built. Forty men

will soon be on their way to
Mars.

MARS, JULY 4, 1992

Today the MK-1 took off,
bound for Earth. We just man-
aged to collect enough water.
The second pilot stayed behind
to cut down, the weight.
MARS, JULY 15

The polar “caps” are melt-
ing rapidly, buds are opening
on the shrubs.

We are all busy writing up
our notes. My contribution in-
cludes a precise account of the
Structure of the atmosphere
here.

The first weather station on
Mars started giving reports
some months ago, but our fore-

casts are often far from accur-
ate! :

radium, within a few years
after they had left the fac-
tory. Then for another 15
years, dial painters continued
one by one to die, from ter-
rible tumors of spine, thigh
or foot, tumors which crippled
before they killed.”

Of some two dozen studied
until death overtook them, he
says, “one of two have died
from as little radium as may
be found on a single dial.”
He adds, “Such amounts weigh
less than the ink in the dot
over this ‘i’. Girls with as
much radium as ink to print
a capital letter died in five
years,” :

Studied, too, were many for-
mer dial painters, a few vet-
eran radium workers, and a
few aviators who have been
exposed to dust from broken
luminous instruments. Their
breath, too, showed exhala-
tions; although carrying rad-
ium in their bodies as much
as 30 years they still were
free of “clinical symptoms.”

Dr. Morrison points out that
the estimates formed on the
basis of these studies omitted
any “large factor of safety to
cover error of measurement”
as well as variations in indi-
viduals’ “predisposition to
blood cell damage or to poor
bone repair.”

“But radium is not stron-
tium,” he notes. “The chain
is longer still.” By feeding
strontium-90 to rats and rab-
bits, a strontium - equivalent
was set, “and then the toler-
ance learned from the dial
painter and the pilots is trans-
lated” to Sr-90 tolerance.

MARS, JULY 21, 15.45 HRS.

Everything is ready for the
MK-2 to take off. It’s good-
bye to Mars for all of us, ex-
cept the second pilot of MK-1
who is staying behind by him-
self until the other ships ar-
TIVes

ABOARD THE MK.2
SEPTEMBER, 17

An hour ago the MK-3
squadron took off from Earth
bound for Mars. Our colleague
will be on his own for 146
Martian days.

ABOARD THE MK.2
JANUARY 29, 1993

00.10 hours. Behind us lie
262,500,000 miles. Our journey
is drawing to an end — The
MK-2 is already in the “sub-
urbs” of Earth.

We transferred to the small
jet-propelled “cosmic glider”
fitted in the nose of our space
ship. The spaceship we left to
circle the Sun on its own, like
another tiny planet.

FEBRUARY 8, 1957 —

7

ec

“Then the long chain of
events is followed,” Dr. Mor-
rison writes. ‘From fall-out
to soil and plant, from leaf
to cattle feed, from feed to
milk and cheese, from nour-
ishment to bone, the measure-
ments run. Some strontium
is found already in the skele-
tons of children in the United
States.”

As measured, “It appears to
be much less than the toler-
ance burden which we think
we know, inferred from the
chain of tests which run from
man to rat, from strontium
to radium, back to the aching
doomed young women 20 odd
years ago in the Oranges, limp-
ing into Martland’s office, to
watch him check off on -his
list of wartime dial painters
their own names.”

Dr. Morrison then asks “how
secure” is this chain of in-
ference, and concludes ‘‘there
is plenty of room for reason-
able doubt.” ;

With each American, Soviet
or British bomb test, he. says,
the strontium in the soil over
all the world grows,

“The time must come when
the powers will tacitly or ex-
plicitly limit their  fission-
fusion testing: better soon than
late. ... But a major fission-
fusion war could raise the
strontium level everywhere
by hundredsfolds, and the dial
painters disease would be-

come a generation’s plague on
the whole world, on the just
and unjust alike, on the neu-
tral and the belligerent, on
the victor and the vanquish-
ed,”

01.15 hours. The Earth is
very close. And now we are
preparing to land.

MOSCOW, JANUARY 30

In front of me is a special
edition of Evening Moscow
which came out an hour after
we landed at the Moscow cos-
modrome.

On the front page is a ban-
ner headline: “A bridge from
Earth to Mars—Another giant
stride along man’s path into the
universe.”

MOSCOW, FEBRUARY 10

A radiogram has’ been re-
ceived from our settler on
Mars. He has discovered-a new
source of water which will pro-
vide an abundance of inert
fluid for the atomic engines.

We are waiting impatiently
for the
leagues on the MK-1. They are
due. to arrive in two months’
time.

MOSCOW, MARCH 5

The MK-3 squadron is Jand-
ing on Mars today, Our friend 8
long period of solitude is over!

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—PAGE 12

return of our col.

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