Why America Launched a GoFundMe for Marie Curie
Sometimes a girl just needs a little radium
Last week I had a very exciting meeting. After several months of waiting, I received an invitation to join the History Committee of the American Society of Therapeutic Radiation Oncology.
I love medical history. I guess I find solace in knowing that no matter how screwed up our medical system may be on some days, man was it A LOT worse back then. And brave people tried to make it better.
In our first committee meeting (of course via Zoom), the chairmen assigned each of us an interview subject and gave a short summary of each’s contribution to the field of radiation oncology. My subject, Dr. Frank Ellis, was one of the first doctors to treat cancer with radium. All of the fingers on his right hand were amputated due to the skin cancers he developed as a result of chronic exposure to radiation. (In the early days of radium, doctors handled the small pellets of radiation with their bare hands, not the long tongs that came later. Definitely pre-OSHA.)
As a radiation oncologist, I’ve always been interested in Maria Sklowdowska-Curie, the Polish born scientist who was the first woman to win the Nobel Prize for her discovery of radium. On one trip to Paris, I took a bus to the Institut Curie. Tucked in a remote residential area of Paris, improbably her lab had been turned into a small museum.
Over the course of several hours, I wandered through the exhibits. Given that the half-life of radium is 1600 years, I’m sure the entire place would have sent a Geiger counter singing. After purchasing a poster and a couple of books, I exited out into a small garden at the back of the museum and sat down on a bench next to a statue of Marie and her husband, Pierre. Flipping through her short biography, I was startled to learn that Marie had traveled extensively in the United States. When did she find the time?
In 1920, Marie Curie granted an interview to Mrs. W.B. Meloney, a female reporter and socialite who was touring Europe interviewing scientists. Mrs. Meloney was shocked to find Mrs. Curie, less than a decade after her Nobel prize win, working in a dilapidated lab without any radium. The French government had distributed her 1 gm of radium to physicians and had not delivered the promised $100,000 (over a million dollars in today's money) to replace it. Upon returning to the US, Mrs. Meloney wrote an article for the popular Delineator magazine reporting that “the great Curie is getting older, and the world is losing, God alone knows, what great secret.”
Determined that this great woman would not be tossed aside, Mrs. Meloney formed the Marie Curie Radium Fund, modeling her fundraising efforts after the wildly successful fundraising drive for the Statue of Liberty. Housewives knocked on doors and schoolgirls sent in dimes. In the end, American women raised over $150,000 to buy Marie Curie more radium to continue her research efforts.
The extremely shy scientist sailed across the Atlantic with her two daughters to collect the radium. When their ship docked in New York harbor, a raucous crowd greeted them complete with brass bands, dozens of Girl Scout troops and hundreds of well-wishers throwing roses. The Curies spent seven weeks traveling across the country so that Americans could get a glimpse of this remarkable woman. Madame Curie reportedly ended the trip with her arm in a sling having shaken so many hands. In addition to stops at the Grand Canyon and Niagara Falls, Madame Curie visited the Standard processing plant outside Pittsburgh where she marveled at the process by which dozens of workers extracted her precious radium, a task she usually performed herself in her small lab.
President Harding presented the radium gift to Madame Curie at a White House ceremony where the most distinguished scientists and diplomats were in attendance saying, “We greet you as foremost among scientists in the age of science as leader among women in the generation which sees woman come tardily into her own.”
In photographs from that day, Madame Curie holds a lead box weighing over a hundred pounds that could only be opened with a special gold key. The box, however, was empty as the radium was stored at a facility miles away with a significant security detail.
After the ceremony, Madame Curie collected the radium and returned to France. That gram of radium purchased with the donations of American women was used in experiments that earned her second Nobel prize. Money from the fund later supported her daughter Irene as she fled the Nazi invasion of France in 1935 with her 2 children and the precious radium.
The organized, collective effort of American women aided by the message amplification of a passionate female journalist allowed science to move forward. One must only wonder if the great scientific discoveries of radioactivity would have continued if not for the passion project of Mrs. Meloney and the women of America.
This country can sometimes seem hopelessly divided and medicine can be incredibly screwed up. The story of Madame Curie and Mrs. Meloney reminds me that we are all in this together when we choose to be.
Jeff Daniels said it best in this scene from The Newsroom. Unable to get away with his usual glib answers, Daniels’ character delivers a clear-eyed monologue on why America is not the greatest country in the world…but it can be. (h/t:
for the link)We have to stop being so scared to try something big. Incremental steps are not going to get us where we need to be. We must dream big and act big together. Be willing to sacrifice fingers and engage in collective action. Current and future patients with cancer deserve nothing less.
Thank you for being on this journey with me. Please leave a comment on what big thing you think needs to be done and share Cancer Culture with others who need to be part of this movement.
On my mind…
Speaking of GoFundMe, the pinkwash of October will soon be upon us. Keep your head on a swivel. Pink products are usually a marketing ploy with minimal impact on important cancer patient support or research.
Hello, Pittsburgh! I will be in your area presenting at the October meeting of the Squirrel Hill Historical Society. Would love to see you if you are in the area.
If you are a person with cancer who wonders what food is best for you, check out Cook for Your Life. The team at Fred Hutch provide yummy recipes and evidence-based recommendations for people affected by cancer. (h/t: my friend, Julie aka The Cancer Dietitian)
This is fascinating history. It could be a movie!