Last week we saw an unhealthy dose of revisionism about the meltdown that occurred 50 years ago last month at the Sodium Reactor Experiment up at the Santa Susana Field Laboratory in the hills between the Simi and San Fernando valleys in Southern California.
Unfortunately, rewriting of history when it comes to the oft-times tragic effects of radiation exposure is by no means a new phenomenon. This morning, I was reminded by a writing partner of mine that thinking that overt radiation exposure used to be quite the fad. She had just read our “That Healthy Glow” article that explored the fascination with radium as a curative early in the last century. The article noted:
Thousands of people drank radium-laced bottled water as an all-purpose elixir known popularly as “liquid sunshine.” As recently as 1952, Life magazine wrote about the healthy effects of inhaling radioactive radon gas in deep mines. Even today, the Merry Widow Health Mine near Butte, Montana and the nearby Sunshine Radon Health Mine advertise that visitors to the mines report multiple benefits from inhaling radioactive radon. Radon gas, however, has been most commonly linked to lung cancer.
This being the vacation time of year, we thought we’d check up on the Merry Widow Health Mine in Montana to see if we should recommend it to you folks still searching for an exciting and hot place to visit with the fam. Sure enough, the mine is not only going strong, there are a couple of YouTube videos about the place hailing its radium waters and radon gases as the ultimate cure for just about all that ails you.
So, if you buy that, it’s time to pack up the kids and head for those the Hot Hills of Montana! Make sure everyone gets to drink plenty of this water and inhale very, very deeply. Works wonders as those Merry Widow Health Mine folks testify: “Helping People with Pain for 50 Years!”
Was this spot restricted to men only? Just thought that might be the reason for the name.