Radium bromide Institute had four grams of radium total, which at the time was more than half the world supply. Countries all over the world set out to make as much radium as possible, a time consuming and expensive task. It was reported in "Science" magazine in 1919 that the United States had produced approximately 55 grams of radium since 1913, which was also more than half the radium produced in the world at the time. A principal source for radium is pitchblende, which holds a total of 257 mg of radium per ton of UO. Obviously with so little product recovered
Radium Girls for living dial painters. The project also focused on collection of information and, in some cases, tissue samples from the radium dial painters. When the project ended in 1993, detailed information of 2,403 cases had been collected. This led to a book on the effects of radium on humans. The book suggests that radium-228 exposure is more harmful to health than exposure to radium-226. Radium-228 is more able to cause cancer of the bone as the shorter half life of the radon-220 product compared to radon-222 causes the daughter nuclides of radium-228 to deliver a greater dose of alpha radiation