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"There was one women who the dentist went to pull a tooth and he pulled her entire jaw out when he did it," says Blum. "Their legs broke underneath them. Their spines collapsed."

Horrific stuff.

I've always found it curious how nonchalant people are with dangerous substances before it's realized how hazardous they can be. My grandfather loaded asbestos into railcars at a factory for 30 years, I still can't quite imagine how he must have felt when he fully realized the dangers it posed.

And the companies knew that it was dangerous too

According to Wikipedia:

The U.S. Radium Corporation hired some 70 women to perform various tasks including the handling of radium, while the owners and the scientists familiar with the effects of radium carefully avoided any exposure to it themselves; chemists at the plant used lead screens, masks and tongs.[1] US Radium had even distributed literature to the medical community describing the “injurious effects” of radium.

And this is why self regulation rarely works in for-profit industries.
Why isn't the threat of legal action a sufficient incentive against this? It might not help to prevent freak accidents but for known health problems like the radium, if the managers are documented to know about it without taking action, then they would spend the rest of their lives at risk of going to prison, or at least the company being fined.
Of all the things I've seen scare people in plants, OSHA wins, hands down. The environmental agencies probably come neatly in second. Fines can be paid, lawsuits settled, but OSHA will come in and lock down your facility and stop production. They're like the nuclear deterrent of plant safety (and while it can be said that stuff still gets by, there is always the omnipresent fear of getting caught, and even that helps raise safety awareness).

They have teeth, such that just baring their teeth can be enough to incite action.

Because them knowing about could also be coupled with them knowing that they can defend against such action. Either advised by their legal team based on existing laws or based on how well "written down" the evidence is.

In this case for example, it was an iconic case. But each of the Radium Girls didn't really get that great of a deal out of it ($10k in 1920's money). And US Radium Corp didn't exactly crumble after the lawsuit. It functioned for many decades after.

Yep, that's only about $120,000 in today's money.
It's hard to pin liability on specific individuals without documentary proof, as verbal conversations are ephemeral and criminal liability usually requires a demonstration of intent which is hard to establish in court. companies can build the cost of fines into the price of their product to some extent, and whenever a company is fined a large amount there's always a contingent of unquestioningly-pro-business people available to denounce it a 'gubmint shakedown,' and make noises about tyranny, liberty, due process and so on - regardless of the degree to which the regulatory action is warranted.
Suing someone is a huge pain in the butt and costs a lot of money. It's also extra difficult when you are trying to sue someone who knows what they are doing is wrong and is actively trying to cover their tracks and obstruct the case. At the same time there is a concerted effort among corporations to limit their liability through legislation, and via PR campaigns against lawyers and lawsuits.
Companies can afford giant legal teams that can stretch things out for decades. Horrendously sick people can't afford the lawyers nor the time.
Because someone in a tank is not afraid of someone with a slingshot (corporate legal department vs smalltime injured/sick/dying people.)
A different, but somewhat similar issue came up with PVC (?); hairspray contained PVC until the health hazards became commonly known while industrial users continued exposing workers to those same hazards. The reasoning, as I understand the story, was that the companies' liability to customers (i.e. hairspray users) was unlimited, while the liability to employees was limited.

If you find these sorts of things amusing, check out Thomas Midgley, Jr. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Midgley,_Jr.).

Some companies are willing to that risk and gamble that no one finds out, especially if the legal action in question is cheaper than the fix. :)
Yes. Moreover, this self regulating-type "utopias" are not just fantasies or tricks from history -- this is reality in some countries that are corrupt, where government regulations exist, but are just never enforced. You go to the market to buy baby formula and you get chalk mixed with water. You buy "organic" but it is laced with chemicals.
You're right, there should have been a regulatory agency that US Radium could bribe or lobby so that they could avoid paying any damages to the victims at all. /s
Volenti non fit injuria
Not sure if you're serious, but if you are: "the willing" are often poorly informed or have little choice.
denysonique didn't give enough information about whether the legal doctrine should apply or is a good policy; simply that it often does apply and often shields companies from lawsuits.
When the nature of the hazard is entirely new and it causes no symptoms in the short term, who could imagine it's dangerous? Are we confident that Facebook use won't cause psychological problems as people grow older? That reading endless news stories on the internet won't reduce people's ability to maintain a long train of thought?
> who could imagine it's dangerous

There are usually people who do, but they will be labelled anti-progress and anti-science because there is no scientific background for their worries (yet).

Because they are anti-progress and anti-science. For every horrific story of "we didn't know the dangers involved until it was too late," there are dozens of other new technologies that give people "bad feelings" that lead to great advancements.

Just imagine if the anti-vaccine hysteria of today was present in the the past. Polio and small pox could still be rampant today.

Look at what the anti-nuclear power activists achieved during the 1970s - a greater reliance on fossil fuels for generating electricity.

Now today we are dealing with unfounded fears of GMOs. You and I can probably comfortably live with higher food prices, but millions around the world can not wait for 30 years of study "just in case."

And then you have fearmonging pushed for political reasons, such as this new opposition to building the Keystone pipeline, created to be a political wedge issue. The result? More oil transported by railcar, which uses more energy and causes more oil spills. The rail yard near me now had to expand into swamp on the Mississippi river[1] to accommodate for all the extra oil railcars.

[1] http://therippleeffectmn.blogspot.com/2014/11/wetland-versus...

Net necessarily. Being against something regardless of evidence is an anti-progress position, but asking for safety protocols to be established or longitudinal studies to be carried out is quite reasonable.

In this case the scientists and companies knew about the risks and had stringent safety protocols for some people but not for others. If it ain't safe for the CEO, it ain't safe for the janitor.

anti-nuclear power activists achieved during the 1970s

.. before Chernobyl and Fukushima. I think we need to be careful about claiming the safety of nuclear power in a thread about the dangers of radium.

Chernobyl and Fukushima killed fewer people than many individual coal mining disasters, let alone the deaths caused by coal's air pollution (which includes vastly more radiation than nuclear accidents have generated).
Coal doesn't have the capability for a cost cutting corporation to have a little oops and kill hundreds of thousands, or irradiate chunks of a state.

We've been lucky so far. There have been multiple nuclear accidents -- including 3 mile island -- that could have been far worse and weren't because of luck. Luck is not a viable strategy for dealing with nuclear power.

> who could imagine it's dangerous?

My point of view could be skewed by prior knowledge, but I can still see asking some questions before sticking auto-luminescent material in my mouth.

> I've always found it curious how nonchalant people are with dangerous substances before it's realized how hazardous they can be.

Well, we smoke cigarettes knowing that they are harmful to us.

Smoking rates in the US, Europe, and Australia have fallen tremendously. The peak rates were during the 1950s and 1960s, particularly after WWII. Cigarettes had been heavily promoted through films and popular culture, were included in soldier's rations and kits (paid for by tobacco companies), and pitched via advertising aimed directly at children and appealing to women's sense of independence and self-determination.

During which time the tobacco companies were actively concealing the negative health effects and campaigning against not only regulation but simply providing truthful information about tobacco's hazards.

Instrumental in much of this was Edward Bernays, the father of the modern Public Relations industry (he coined the term after the word "propaganda" lost its lustre after its use by Germany in WWI).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Bernays

The BBC series by excellent documentarian Adam Curtis (I've encountered a few of his other works and writings recently), The Century of the Self covers Bernays:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Century_of_the_Self

Many of the same methods and techniques were applied to corporate disinformation campaigns against controls over leaded paint, asbestos, ozone, auto safety. Look up GM's attempts to smear Ralph Nader:

In early March 1966, several media outlets, including The New Republic and The New York Times, reported that GM had tried to discredit Nader, hiring private detectives to tap his phones and investigate his past, and hiring prostitutes to trap him in compromising situations.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Nader

Naomi Oreskes has drawn the parallels -- in methods, organizations, and often the very individuals -- between corporate disinformation campaigns in the case of tobacco, smoking, acid rain, CFCs and the ozone layer, and global warming, in her book Merchants of Doubt.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merchants_of_Doubt

Along with Coke, Pepsi and soda in general being one of the most consumed products on earth. It's like a slow form of suicide, and yet people still consume it widely.
And fast-food. Look at all the obesity on the developed countries! And it's not even a case of lack of information, like it used to be.
There is a much more in-depth article about the Radium Girls and the ensuing cover-up: http://www.damninteresting.com/undark-and-the-radium-girls/

Interestingly, the article I linked missed the woman FTA, possibly because she quit early.

That's a very interesting story. Radium was a huge hit in its times. That what was happening was even called "Radium fever".

Radium was everywhere including toothpastes, shampoons (cure against hair loss).

Fortunately only a few people could afford Radium-enhaced products, since it was expensive. Side effects started to appear quite soon too.

There were other popular uses of radiation, until '50 many shoes shops had X-ray equimpent that allow to see how shoes fit [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoe-fitting_fluoroscope]. Not that great idea, after all.

For me it is kind of warning against using everything that men invent or men can do. There are always things we don't fully know or understand. In the long term something could be a great danger for all of us.

Before we jump into next great thing it is good to stop for a while...

>Before we jump into next great thing it is good to stop for a while...

I have always wondered what it is in our modern society that is incredibly dangerous that we are still not fully aware of the long term effects. PVC piping, propylene glycol, some food additives?

Everything "nano" methinks.
Nano robots specifically, but just watch Star Trek they mapped out quite a few possible problems with future tech.
Nanobots are decades away and may stay that way, but nanotubes are mass-produced and pollution is a problem. The thin fiber is like asbestos except more volatile, and it can cause cancer. http://www.particleandfibretoxicology.com/content/11/1/59
Neverwet? Soylent?
Internet.