Occupational exposure to dial painters and assemblers of radioluminous timepieces

An evaluation of available personnel monitoring data and radium body burden records of dial painters handling an annual average of 1.5 Ci of radium indicates that they received an average of about 2 rem/person whole body exposure, 3 rem to the lungs from radon inhalation and 0.2 rad to the bone from radium body burdens. Among groups of similar workers handling tritium in Texas plants, the highest occupational exposures were about 160 mrem annually per person received by refinishers of tritium dial timepieces and back-lit watch assemblers. Based upon scenarios of exposures to 147Pm, repairers of timepieces containing 147Pm receive about 4.4 X 10(-4) mrem/person/yr whole body dose equivalent. The amounts that they process are in the microcurie range. Although the trend is away from the use of radium as a luminizing activator, there are indications that it is still used in timepieces even as tritium and 147Pm are increasingly being used for this purpose.