Alaina Urquhart

So if you can drink it as a tonic.

Oh, my God.

Of course you can quickly put a fucking brush that's been dipped in it on your lips for a second.

Why wouldn't you?

And the thing is, they were being told by the people who own these corporations and factories, it is completely safe.

Stick it in your mouth.

It's fine.

Put it on your, like, whatever you, like, this radium isn't going to hurt you.

Oh, God.

Yeah, look, it glows.

You're sparkly.

So they were like, okay, why wouldn't they believe that?

Yeah, no, totally.

So from the moment the Curies isolated and extracted radium from uranium, it was apparent the element was dangerous and destructive.

Like you just mentioned, it burned a guy's stomach just being in a glass vial in his pocket.

The problem, it seems, was a matter of communication more than the actual knowledge that everyone had.

So Georgetown radiation expert Timothy Jorgensen said people knew that radioactivity released energy and they didn't see how adding some energy to their bodies could possibly be harmful.

They just weren't.

And they just weren't told that, like, this isn't the kind of energy you want to be adding to your body.

Right, like there's good energy and bad energy.