The bodies of the women and parts of the towns in which they worked remain poisonous to this day. Despite the harrowing implications, why do you feel this story has not been widely explored?

It takes over 1,500 years for the effects of radium to wear off. This means that the bodies of the women and parts of the towns in which they worked remain poisonous to this day. Despite the harrowing implications, why do you feel this story has not been widely explored?

The truth about the drinking water from the tap in parts of Michigan was not even discussed very much - and that is ongoing. Sadly, on to the next tragic event we go without resolution of many ongoing problems.

It is old history--much of our history has been shelved since there is so much new history. If you are old enough, as I am, these stories are not new--my parents told me about Japanese internment camps, the radium girls , union battles with Rockefellers at their Western mining sites, the Johnstown flood. I was born in 1942 to parents born in 1901 and 1903. They lived during these things and made sure we knew about them--but they are scars on the American view of itself as a fair and upright country--we don't want to talk about them. We are ashamed.

We develop a certain deafness to "old news" and lose our sense of outrage. That's what makes books like this, and museums, and documentaries important. As the last Holocaust survivors and WWII veterans dies, their stories become less vibrant. It is truly unfortunate when that happens before the problems they were addressing or with which they were burdened remain. With Chernobyl and Three Mile Island no longer in the news, and when Flint , Michigan's water problem becomes an old story, the same thing will happen, and the people who weren't around for the story's origin will suffer just like the originial victims.

One reason for this is that the world has changed so much since the 20’s and 30’s. Just look at what is covered in history courses and how children and young people are learning stand alone facts without context. Books like this and recent books on the women involved in the space race, the use of bodies for research that was not fully explained, etc. It is good that books like this are published and that more children’s books on similar historical events are being published to broaden our understanding of the past and it’s effect on today.

Simply because the history of women, children and minorities being exploited in some way is constantly shelved, shoved under the carpet or outright ignored. If the case had involved white men of the time, it certainly would be more well known even now.

This probably will never happen until the public that lives around those locations rises up and demands that attention be paid to the toxicity in that atmosphere as an existing result of this human tragedy.

I live VERY near one of the cities that still has the buried radium. I think that the cost to really eradicate this problem is way more than anyone - including the government - is willing to take on. Even though guilt was determined, no one will take the job to clean the problem up, because that is the final responsibility and is the damning legacy. It is easier to "cover up" problems than it is to "clean up" problems. We allow things of this nature to be swept under the rug and unfortunately the next crisis rears it's head and we move on.

There is and always will be cover ups in local tragic events in order that we might have progress on a grand scale. Humans have short memories because the media inundates us with today's news in such an overpowering way that we remain in constant state of confusion.

I'm curious as to how all the radium could be removed and disposed of. Is that even possible? I think every one of those places should have a sign that explains why it is fenced in and dangerous along with pictures of the women who died least we forget.

Things of this nature get shoved under the rug after a period of time because people want to forget. Because sometimes we have to forget because there is no other way to live peacefully, knowing the truth. It almost makes me want to pack up and move, to be honest, since I live so close to one of the towns discussed.