Letters Received to H.H. Barker, January 7, 1930

UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI COLUMBIA DEPARTMENT OF CHEMISTRY JAN 9 1930 January 7, 1930 Mr. H. H. Barker, U. S. Radium Corp., 535 Pearl Street, New York City, N. Y. My dear Howard: These days I presume you are probably centering some of your attention on the damage suits which are pending; but I hope that you have not dis- missed from your mind entirely the situation with Dr. Flinn. Thus far I have made no reply to Dr. Flinn's letter of December llth, in which he states his position on the question of publishing another joint paper, Morever, I have only recently read the paper by Flinn and Seidlin, on Elimination of Radium, by Parathormone treatment. Since Dr. Flinn has modified his attitude in several respects since the date of his letter, perhaps there will be nothing gained by writing at length about the diff- erent points which are involved, but since I have thus far refrained from stating my views, let me take a few minutes now to tell you how I feel. I do not expect to go into details. It seems to me it is mutually agreed, now, that we may publish independ- ently of Dr. Flinn the results obtained in the Elimination of Radium. of course, we would not use the data we have on hand for Dr. Flinn's subjects We agree, as Dr. Flinn says, "it would be unethical". Although we have secured no data on elimination when patients are under treatment, it seems to me that quantitative data on elimination under normal living conditions is a distinct contribution. Your suggestion to publish jointly with Dr. Failla the data obtained for Miss Freyer and Mrs. Hussman, is entirely agreeable to me. The next step looking to this end would be recasting the paper, limiting it to experiments which were conducted entirely independent of Dr. Flinn. Shall we proceed with this plan? With reference to Dr. Flinn's paper in The Johns Hopkins Bulletin, it strikes me that the apparent reduction of about 50% in the activity as the result of the Parathormone treatment, stands out as a pioneer contri- bution of great importance. We have hore what one may term a cure for radium poisoning. These findings have such a fundamental bearing on radium therapy that confirmation by treatment of other subjects having radium poisoning is imperative. If we accept these results as actual elimination of radium, nearly 50% then would we not have to say that a Gure for radium poisoning has been discovered? Far be it from-me to criticise these experiments, but I should like to hear the opinion of medical men themselves as to the probability of such a high reduction of radium in so short a time -- six months (?) -- Con- sidering the persistent way in which radium is retained in the bones this high reduction would point to a rather extraordinary elimination of calcium, -