• PugJesus@lemmy.worldOPM
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    3 months ago

    Explanation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radium_Girls

    The Radium Girls were female factory workers who contracted radiation poisoning from painting radium dials – watch dials and hands with self-luminous paint. The incidents occurred at three factories in the United States: one in Orange, New Jersey, beginning around 1917; one in Ottawa, Illinois, beginning in the early 1920s; and one in Waterbury, Connecticut, also in the 1920s.

    • deathmetal27@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      They were instructed to wet the tip of the brushes on their tongue to make it pointy. Causing them to regularly ingest small quantities of Radium.

      • Ptsf@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        Sounds like good old American manufacturing. Could have easily left a little cup with water nearby, but the workers got a tongue so that would just drive up costs!

          • Ptsf@lemmy.world
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            3 months ago

            Eh, some of them maybe but try and remember that it’s a tool for economic function, yes there are alternatives, but surely Stalinist communism taught us that any economic system like any tool can be abused. It’s most likely we’ll need a better culture if we’re to fix the issues with the world that capitalism is often used to exasperate.