Question: Who were the “radium girls”?
Answer: According to the cited reference, the so-called “radium girls” were “Teenage girls and young women, whose job it was to apply luminous paint containing radium to watches [and instrument dials] during World War I, were among the first industrial radiation poisoning victims in the United States.” They attained dangerous exposures to radium “through licking their brushes to attain a fine point, through inhaling fine particles of radium laden dust and radon (a radioactive gas)…”(Clark C. Physicians, reformers and occupational disease: The discovery of radium poisoning. 1987 Women & Health 12(2):147-167)
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