 In 1898, Marie and Pierre Curie discovered Radium 226. By isolating the element from raw uranium ore, their Nobel Prize-winning research opened up the atom's secrets and gave hope that its mysterious radioactive rays could curate host of illnesses. Radium did offer new treatments for cancer. Some of them are still used today. However, sobering reality replaced euphoria as Radium and consumer products proved dangerous. In the 1920s, serious health problems and deaths among Radium factory workers were traced to Radium ingestion. Still, many years passed before Congress put the federal government in charge of Radium regulation. I'm Tom Wellock, Historian for the NRC. In this video, I will trace Radium's history where states took the early lead in regulating its safety and how in recent decades, domestic and international events produced a consensus that the NRC should assume responsibility. After the Curie's discovery, radiation became a consumer and medical sensation, and Radium was the poster child. Researchers concluded Radium was a lifesaver after finding it reduced tumor growth and was present in the waters at some health spas. Manufacturers began hawking products they claimed were laced with Radium, though these claims were often false. Failed items included kitchenware, water jugs, facial creams, even condoms. Buyers snapped them up as miracle cures and status symbols. Radium paints luminescent properties made possible glow in the dark dials for watches and other indicators. Today we are going to meet with Roger Sherman, Associate Curator in the Division of Medicine and Science at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History. He's going to show us some historic Radium consumer products in the Smithsonian's collection. As the museum's Radiation Safety Coordinator, Roger explained that the products were safe for viewing as part of this video. Roger, can you tell me why the public was interested in Radium consumer items? Yes, well the whole fascination with Radium started shortly after it was discovered by Mary Curie just before 1900. Soon became clear that Radium was quite a physical puzzle, it was a new element that just gave off radiation with no obvious source. So it was only natural for people to think, well if this radium, this wonder element gives off radiation like this, maybe it can supply energy to the human body, maybe it can give us vigor and activity that we otherwise wouldn't have. So what kind of items were popular at the time? Well, as time went on there was a whole range of products that either actually included radium or claimed to and we have one here called Radithor which was just a solution that had a very small amount of radium and other materials in it and this was something that people were told they could just drink every day and it would vitalize them. Radium could be used not only inside the body but also be applied externally and there were various ointments and salves and things and here we have a Radium comb that came from Germany and it came with a set of little tubes like this that had radium in them and there's a little inscription that specifies exactly how much radium material there is in it. This tube would be fitted to the comb and then as you comb your hair it would be energized and vitalized and give you a new youthful look I suppose. Okay, and was there other items that people could use every day to get an ingestion of radium? Well sure you could get elaborate equipment like this Radium Mater here and our example unfortunately is incomplete but the way it worked was there'd be a glass vessel under here and this part had the radium in this little metal cylinder. When you wanted to get your radium drink you'd squeeze this rubber bulb which would force air past the radium and pick up radon that the radium had been giving off all day and that radon would then be dissolved in the water which you then drink. In 1925 the press reported on some of the earliest radiation-induced cancers. Its victims were young women, watch-style painters concentrated in New Jersey, Connecticut, and Illinois. The intricate work required them to lip-point their brushes. Infections and jaw cancers followed as radium's bone-seeking properties and long-lived radioactivity proved deadly. The tragic story of the radium girls transformed radiation's image from panacea to poison. Prior to World War II public attention turned to compensating victims and limiting radium exposures, duties that usually fell to state governments and courts. Some states passed laws to protect workers, others limited the radium industry's liability. States were able to halt the practice of lip-pointing but their powers were limited as some manufacturers simply chose to move. Federal agencies organized conferences, issued health studies, and developed voluntary safe work practices. The Federal Trade Commission was able to shut down falsely advertised products such as the tonic ratathor that claimed to be a fountain of youth but there was no comprehensive federal role. While radium was left to the states in this era, there was little radioactive material to regulate. Radioisotopes were either painstakingly isolated from natural ores, as was radium, or created in small batches and particle accelerators by firing beams of electrons and protons. With the end of World War II the oversight of radioisotopes changed. Radium opened up possibilities for effective cancer treatments and scientists working on the Manhattan Project's wartime reactors discovered many new isotopes for use in science and medicine. Cold war security concerns led to federal control of this new radioactive material under the 1946 Atomic Energy Act but the law carefully avoided intruding on state authority by restricting the new Atomic Energy Commission to regulating fissionable material like uranium and the new isotopes produced in reactors. States kept their authority over accelerator produced and natural isotopes such as radium. While dividing up the regulatory pie this way preserved traditional state authority, it made little technical sense since a reactor made isotope is no different from the same one found in nature or produced in an accelerator. The regulatory picture was further complicated by states taking varying approaches to regulation. Eventually radium consumer products disappeared from stores but the items made during radium's heyday retained their hazard for a long time so from time to time reports emerged of products found in someone's attic or radium contamination in a building. In the 1960s federal and some state health agencies launched a program to collect and dispose of these old radium sources. Over the next 20 years state radiation control officials asked Congress to put the AEC and later the NRC in charge of radium regulation. In 1985 the NRC asked to regulate radium waste disposal but Congress took no action in part due to the difficulties in choosing the federal agency best suited to regulate radium and the cleanup of contaminated sites. Little change until the 1990s when terrorism provided a new dimension of concern. Experts worried that untracked or stolen radioactive sources could be used in dirty bombs. Between 1998 and 2003 the NRC worked with other countries on a code of conduct to regulate a list of radioactive sources radium among them. After the September 11th terrorist attacks support for the code of conduct grew and in 2005 Congress passed the Energy Policy Act turning radium regulation over to the NRC. The agency assumed authority for radium in phases completing the process in 2009. The NRC has direct regulatory responsibility in 13 states and US territories. 37 states known as agreement states regulate radium and other radioactive materials themselves under agreements with the NRC and so after many decades public health concerns and national security issues justified centralized regulation. Today the NRC is working with state and local governments as well as site owners to ensure health and safety are protected at sites where radium was handled. For more information on the NRC's radium program visit our website at www.nrc.gov.