Word: radiumator
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Died. Arthur W. Hermann, 72, a foreman from 1918 to 1922 of the U.S. Radium Corp., against which he filed a $1,000,000 damage suit three months ago, charging that he had suffered radium poisoning while at work; of cancer; in East Orange, N.J. Forty-three women employees of the company during the same era subse quently died of radium poisoning, probably from swallowing the radioactive substance while moistening the brushes they used in painting numerals on watch dials...
...some disturbing byproducts of the Atomic Age. For a year its experts studied the Animas River in Colorado and New Mexico, whose water is used for the homes of 30,000 people. Below the Durango, Colo. uranium refinery of the Vanadium Corp. of America, the water was loaded with radium from the plant's wastes. Some samples were 160% above the maximum level officially considered safe for health. Vanadium Corp. has agreed to do something at once...
While poking around the Animas Valley, Health Service scientists came across a second, even more alarming danger. Vegetables grown by irrigation contained not only 'radium (from the water), but also surprising amounts of strontium 90, which could have come only from nuclear-test fallout. Peas ranged as high as 250 micromicrocuries per kilogram (2.2 lbs.); cabbages went up to 315 micromicrocuries. One sample of lettuce had 970 micromicrocuries. The reading was twelve times the maximum permissible level set by the Atomic Energy Commission...
...Richland, Wash., G.E. operates the Government-owned Hanford plutonium works, where every year it produces isotopes with 140 times the radioactivity of the world supply of radium, is conducting radiation studies on plants and animals...
Scrubdown. Since radium is under state control, Johnny Pierce's confession let the federal officials out of the case. But they had already been around with their Geiger counters, detected radioactivity at the motel and the drugstore that Johnny had visited, ordered a thorough scrubdown. State officials carried on, traced everybody with whom Johnny had so much as shaken hands that morning, got them started on the scrubbing routine. By week's end everybody except Johnny was in the clear...