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1 " Read the following chain of events and see whether a similar pattern might apply to other toxic products that were reported in the news during your lifetime: 1. Workers were told that the paint was nontoxic, although there was no factual basis for this declaration. The employers discounted scientists. The workers believed their superiors.2. Health complaints were made in ever-increasing frequency. It became obvious that something was seriously wrong.3. U.S. Radium and other watch-dial companies began a campaign of disinformation and bogus medical tests - some of which involved X-rays and may even have made the condition worse.4. Doctors, dentists, and researchers complied with U.S. Radium's and other companies' requests and refused to release their data to the public.5. Medical professionals also aided the companies by attributing worker deaths to other causes. Syphilis was often cited as the diagnosis, which had the added benefit to management of being a smear on the victims' reputations.6. One worker, Grace Fryer, decided to sue U.S. Radium. It took Fryer two years to find a lawyer who was willing to take on U.S. Radium. Only four other workers joined her suit; they became known as the "Radium Girls."7. In 1928, the case was settled in the middle of the trial before it went to the jury for deliberation. The settlement for each of the five "Radium Girls" was $10,000 (the equivalent of $124,000 in 2009 dollars), plus $600 a year while the victim lived and all medical expenses.Remember the general outline of this scenario because you will see it over and over again: The company denies everything while the doctors and researchers (and even the industrial hygienists) in the company's employ support the company's distorted version of the facts. Perhaps one worker in a hundred will finally pursue justice, one lawyer out of the hundreds of thousands in the United States will finally step up to the plate, and the case will be settled for chump change. "
― Monona Rossol
