Radiclear - A System to Filter Radium from Water

Using Magnesium Oxide Carbon Nanotube Technology

How Does Radium-Contaminated Water Affect You? 

Because radium is absorbed by the body in the same way as calcium, it replaces calcium in bones and tissues.  Drinking water contaminated with high levels of radium can cause dysfunctional cell growth leading to various diseases.  Children, whose bones are still growing, are at high risk for cell and bone related diseases caused by radium.  Diseases include bone cancer, leukemia and anemia.The legal action level for radium is 5 pC/L (picocuries per liter). 

The History of Radium

1898 -
The element radium is discovered by Marie Curie when she notices that pitchblende is more radioactive than the uranium extracted from it, and reasons that there must be another radioactive element

1917-1925 - Thousands of young women, the "Radium Girls," work in clock factories, painting radium onto glow-in-the-dark watch dials.  They are encouraged to lick their brushes to form a sharper point.

1917-1925 -
Radium becomes recognized as a substance that makes industrial workers ill

1918-1928 - Radithor, a patent medicine made of radium and distilled water, is sold as a common cure-all

1928 -
Five "Radium Girls" sue their employers and win.  Each Radium Girl receives a $10,000 settlement

1932 - Eben Byers, who was prescribed Radithor by his doctor, dies of radium poisoning.  The Wall Street Journal headline reads:  "The Radium Water Worked Fine Until His Jaw Came Off"

1936 - Radium is the first radioactive element to be synthetically produced in the US

1974 -
The Safe Water Drinking Act establishes a maximum contaminant level for radium of 5 picocuries per liter

2012 -
Marie Curie's notebooks are still so contaminated by radiation that they are unsafe to touch

Radium used to be used as a health tonic, until people started dying of the "cure"!