The popular energy drink is actually "poison"? How dangerous is radium water?

On the morning of March 31, 1932, Eben M. Byers died in agony in a New York hospital.

He was killed by radium. This dangerous substance was deposited in his body, and his bones, internal organs and even his breath were radioactive. Byers' bones were necrotic and disintegrating. He had already lost most of his jawbone, and there was even a big hole in his skull. The scene was so tragic that witnesses could not bear to describe it.

Biles was a wealthy man in the steel business and an excellent amateur golfer. No matter his financial resources or physical condition, it is hard to imagine that such a socialite would die so tragically at the age of 51.

The culprit behind this is the most dangerous "energy drink" in history - Radithor.

Author's drawing

"Magic" Drinks

It is hard for people today to imagine taking in radioactive substances like drinking beverages. After all, we have learned how dangerous they are in school. However, in the 1920s and 1930s, there was a ridiculous trend in the United States to use the radioactive element radium to "strengthen the body". Radium water was the most representative product of this trend.

Radium water was created in 1925 by the Bailey Radium Laboratory, whose founder was William JA Bailey. Although it looks high-tech, the production process of radium water is actually very simple: Bailey Radium Laboratory simply buys radium salts from another nearby laboratory and dissolves them in distilled water. After such a simple process, the value of these solutions increased by nearly 500%, and they were transformed into a magical "patented drug."

An empty radium water bottle, which once contained a solution containing small amounts of radium-226 and radium-228 | National Museum of Nuclear Science & History/Wikipedia

Strictly speaking, radium water is not actually a drug. At the time, radium was considered a "natural element" rather than a drug ingredient, and was not regulated by the Food and Drug Administration. It might be more accurate to call it a "health drink." It is precisely because of the omissions in supervision that these radioactive solutions were directly put on the market without careful evaluation, and they could be purchased at will without a prescription.

Bailey packaged radium water as a universal health drink. The advertising brochure claimed that the alpha particles produced by radium decay could "replenish energy" for the human body and revitalize the endocrine system, so radium water could treat more than 150 diseases including high blood pressure, anemia, and epilepsy. Although there was no scientific basis for this statement, the radium water business quickly became prosperous - probably because Bailey provided generous kickbacks to doctors who recommended radium water. Between 1925 and 1930, more than 400,000 bottles of radium water were sold around the world.

At the same time, various "radium health products" emerged one after another. The picture shows a can of radium bath salts | orau.org

Byers encountered radium water in 1927, a year when he broke his arm and suffered from chronic pain. At the suggestion of Dr. Charles Clinton Moyar, Byers began to try radium water.

The radium water seemed to have a magical effect on Biles - at least, that's what he thought. Biles felt like he had regained his youth and vitality, and he became a die-hard fan of radium water. Over the next two years, he insisted on drinking radium water every day, drinking a total of 1,000-1,500 bottles. Not only did he drink it himself, he also gave boxes of radium water to friends and even fed some to his racehorses.

Biles in the 1920s | Wikipedia

Disillusionment

However, the illusion quickly faded. In early 1930, Byers began to feel something was wrong: he lost weight and suffered from constant headaches and toothaches. At first, his personal doctor thought he had sinusitis, but then Byers' teeth began to fall out one by one - this was not the result of sinusitis.

While examining Byers’ X-rays, radiologist Joseph Steiner noticed something was wrong: lesions in his jawbone were similar to those in previously discovered cases of radium poisoning, suggesting the problem was caused by the radium water Byers had drunk.

Another famous case of radium poisoning during the same period was the "Radium Girls", women workers who ingested radium while applying luminous paint to watches and suffered from osteonecrosis of the jaw | Wikipedia

At the same time, government agencies began to take notice of the dangers of radium water. On February 4, 1930, the FDA issued a warning about these radioactive agents, and the Federal Trade Commission filed a lawsuit against Bailey's Radium Water Company, accusing them of "falsely advertising the effectiveness and safety of their products."

Byers finally stopped taking the radium water, but it was too late: the deposited radium was still wreaking havoc in his body. In September 1931, the Federal Trade Commission wanted Byers to testify at a hearing, but he was too sick to leave the house. An agent who went to Byers' home to investigate the situation witnessed his miserable condition at the time: after two jaw removal operations, he was completely disfigured, conscious but almost unable to speak; his head was wrapped in bandages, and there was even a hole in his skull due to bone necrosis... In addition to bone necrosis, Byers also suffered organ failure, bone marrow lesions and brain abscesses, and he eventually died on March 31, 1932.

After his death, Byers' remains still showed dangerous radioactivity and needed to be buried in a lead-lined coffin. Later analysis showed that by the time Byers died, the accumulated radiation dose in his bones totaled more than 350 sieverts (Sv). What does this number mean? The background ionizing radiation dose that most people receive each year is about 2.4 millisieverts, and the radiation dose Byers received through radium water was more than 140,000 times that.

The forensic doctor placed Byers' teeth on a photographic plate, and the rays emitted by the teeth left these amazing photosensitive marks | The Great Radium Scandal, Scientific American

The farce ends

As a celebrity, Byers' tragic death quickly made headlines, and the incident also marked the end of the "radioactive health product" trend.

In late 1932, the Federal Trade Commission officially shut down Bailey's radium laboratory. Public health officials scrambled to remove radium products from store shelves, and concerned citizens voluntarily handed in their own stocks. Doctors reported more similar poisonings, and calls for stricter regulation of radium grew louder.

However, Bailey, the culprit behind the radium water, was not affected much. Throughout the incident, he always insisted that Biles' strange illness had nothing to do with his product: "I drank more radium water than anyone else, but I never felt any discomfort." Due to the imperfect law, Bailey was not prosecuted for Biles' death.

Radium is dangerously radioactive, but there weren’t enough deaths from products to immediately raise concerns—for reasons including price and product fraud. Bailey’s radium water was expensive, making it hard for ordinary people to afford it and consume it in large quantities. Many other “miracle cures” sold under the radium banner were fake products, and FDA testing showed that most of them did not contain radium.

In that era, products that did not contain radium often took advantage of the popularity of radium, such as this "Radium Butter" | orau.org

Bailey slinked away from public view as the radium water scandal gained wide attention, and he eventually died of bladder cancer in 1949 at the age of 64—a miraculous longevity if he had drunk as much radium water as he claimed.

Tests conducted in 1968 showed that Pele's remains were also highly radioactive - just like the millionaire he killed.

References

[1] https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/382767

[2] https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/382766

[3] https://www.jstor.org/stable/24941583

[4] https://theconversation.com/when-energy-drinks-actually-contained-radioactive-energy-67976

Author: Window Knocking Rain

Editor: Luna

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