RADIUM MONOPOLY

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 547, 27 December 1928, Page 2

RADIUM MONOPOLY

COSTS £30.000 A GRAMME CANCER VICTIMS SUFFER Light was thrown recently on the high price of radium, one oU the greatest of modern medical requirements, which cost £24,000 a teaspoonful. ' The medical superintendent of the Radium Institute, Riding House Street, Langham Place, London, told a “Daily Mail” reporter: “There is a very distinct corner—a monopoly.” He added: “A Belgian company has established it. It controls the Kantaga fields in the Belgian Congo, where there are apparently limitless supplies of the ores which provide radium.

The Belgians have driven other fields out of business, for they have been able to produce radium in greater quantities, and they are now able to charge what price they like. The process for obtaining radium from the uranium salts is very costlv do DOt think jt is as much £12,000 a gramme, the price charged 1 was asked £30,000 for that quantity just after the war. If the price could be reduced to £6,000 a boom™ 6 14 WOuld be a vei W great t * SU D ßer , keley Moynihan, president of "Everv £°” ege ° f Sl >rgeons. said f duo? rJ ef E°rt.nmst be made to reduce tne cost m view of the heaw demand for radium shortlv to b‘ e made and the fact that human lives The buman . happiness depend upon the possession of it ri„come from Belgium, and R Is a molll responsibility upon those who dial commercially with them not to ob tain an exorbitant profit. been demonstrated ssr v-ssi: *“-*> »»• ss-.2% r ,sr:i, h ”' a r““s difficulty a cle=l h danger Md ntade f application of radium than has hitherto been possible owing to the small amount available. S ” “A hope is being born that cases of suSi n °r e rat ly CUFable «te S ns,vl rememlble Pe bv tlo I a S di“m y be ““R 1 ° f the’organ involved Radium i s expensive n. amount required to deal with a oasl £1 500 Cei ' Bill the i- b, ' eaSt costs “a W ever and ’ lt . radium lasts almost for diminution 'of™ ?tV\ e Zl" M Tl ' *‘".H nSto W U therefore be almost eternal.”