![]() Of course, they found that almost all of them had uncommon blood conditions. The Drinkers toured USRC facilities and tested their employees. He hired married couple Cecil and Katherine Drinker, researchers at the Harvard School of Public health, to look into conditions at the factories. USRC president Arthur Roeder made an attempt to halt the growing concern in its tracks. They had Frederick Flynn, a USRC toxicologist with no medical qualifications, examine Fryer. When Grace Fryer’s doctor theorized that her intensifying medical issues might have resulted from her work at the watch factory, USRC stepped in. This would destroy their employees' reputations, casting doubt on any concerns they had expressed. Then they blackmailed the doctors into amending the causes of death to sexually transmitted infections like syphilis. When painters in their employ suddenly died, they would contact their doctors and threaten them with legal action if they released their findings. The executives at USRC quickly realized that they had a problem on their hands. One worker, Grace Fryer, observed that when she blew her nose after a day at the factory, the handkerchief glowed green. Management assured the painters that the material was safe, so sometimes they amused themselves during their long shifts by coating their faces, nails, and teeth with the glowing paint. The brushes tended to lose their points quickly, so USRC instructed the painters to “lip, dip, paint”-in other words, to keep the brushes pointed by pressing them between their lips. The dial painters had to mix the paint themselves, then apply it to the miniscule watch dials with fine-tipped camel hair brushes. ![]() The 300 painters who worked at their Orange, New Jersey facility were expected to paint 250 dials a day for a penny and a half each. Across the United States and Canada, they hired around 4,000 workers, mostly women, for the delicate and tedious task of painting watch dials with radium. USRC's upper management was well aware of the dangers inherent to handling radioactive material, making every effort to avoid touching it themselves.
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