In the 1920s, companies like the United States Radium Corporation told young women that licking radioactive paint brushes was perfectly safe - even healthy. These "Radium Girls" were instructed to use the lip-pointing technique dozens of times per day while painting glow-in-the-dark watch dials. What their employers didn't tell them? The executives already knew radium was deadly and were protecting themselves with lead shields.
When workers like Grace Fryer started glowing in the dark and their jaws began rotting off, companies spent decades in court claiming radium poisoning was a myth. They hired armies of lawyers, buried scientific studies, and conducted secret autopsies - all while more women died horrible deaths.
This isn't just corporate negligence. This is corporate sadism. The radium industry deliberately poisoned hundreds of workers, then fought them in court as they died. Some victims' bodies were so radioactive they had to be buried in lead-lined coffins.
Key Topics Covered:
How radium dial painting became a deadly industry
The lip-pointing technique that killed hundreds of women
Corporate cover-ups and buried health studies
The legal battle that changed workplace safety forever
Why contaminated sites still glow today
