![]() ![]() The Limited Test Ban Treaty-negotiated by Seaborg, then-AEC Chairman-prohibited the three countries from conducting nuclear tests everywhere but underground. The legacy of several hundred dial painters had snowballed into an international policy to inhibit the most destructive weapons in history. Under renewed importance after the Cuban Missile Crisis, a ban was finally agreed upon by the US, the UK and USSR in 1963. Soon after the studies began, scientists quickly realized the women could also help them understand the phenomenon of radioactive fallout.Īfter being deemed “essential to the security of the nation,” permanent studies were established to learn as much as possible from the dial painters. An entire research center, the Argonne National Laboratory, was even built for the primary purpose of studying the women.īy 1957, researchers concluded the danger from Strontium-90 was too great, leading the AEC to push for reduced nuclear activity. The surviving women volunteered as subjects for medical examinations, which included extensive blood tests, x-rays, bone marrow biopsies (and several post-mortem autopsies). The “Radium Girls” were the only known examples of the detriment radiation caused to the human body. In 1956, the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC)-where Seaborg was an advisor-created a committee to investigate the long-term effects of Strontium-90, a radioactive isotope used in nuclear weapons. Promises of a new world fueled by atomic energy and the Cold War nuclear arms race spurred public interest in the effects of radiation exposure, but little was known about it at the time. ![]()
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