Newspaper clipping, 1929

sun 7, 20 U. S. INVESTIGATES regu deat in t RADIUM POISONING L Fa Is Examining 200 Workers I Exposed to Rays. P ha W) WASHINGTON, July 10 (U. P.).- a Scientists of the United States Pub- pc lic Health Service now are engaged in the task of making painstaking na examinations of between 100 and 200 fa factory workers who have been ex- M posed to radium rays in an effort st to save them from the ravages of si; a dreaded new industrial disease. Already about fifty workers in New Po York city and Connecticut have re- fr ceived careful tests with the aid of ni a new instrument, an electroscope recently imported from Europe, but da the examinations will not be com- at pleted until about September 1. The slo reports of the various examinations ab then will be compiled and published. m) Dr. L. R. Thompson, who has no charge of the radium survey, ex- lio plained today that an effort is be- an ing made to examine every worker dit in this part of the country who has th been exposed to radium rays. There ab are now forty-two known radium the poisoning cases in the country, and up the disease has taken a toll of twen- Pr ty-one deaths, he said. Workers examined have not neces- Je sarily been injured by the radium Ta rays, Dr. Thompson added, as many persons have worked with radium A over a period of years without any Ne ill effects. Harm has come mostly tion in cases where girls in clock fac- twe tories pointed radium-tinted brushes day with their lips. The practice has Cor been discontinued. on "The object of the survey,' he and said, "is to study how persons ex- fre posed to the three varieties O1 cha radium rays-alpha, beta and gamma of -have been affected by such ex- con posure and to formulate preventive F