RADIUM FOR CANCER

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 20012, 1 December 1927, Page 11

RADIUM FOR CANCER

A-J2BALIAN SUPPLY. MELBOURNE, Nov. 10. Amazement has been caused by tne announcement that the Federal Department of Health has completed arrangements for the purchase of nearly £loo,000 worth of radium from a foreign country for the treatment of cancer m Australia. The purchase is the result of secret negotiations which have been going on for some time, and officially stated to have been marine with the object of preventing the inflation of market rates. This is described as bordering upon treachery to Australian interests. The radium was procurable in Au>tralia, was offered to the Commonwealth Government without any request for preferential treatment, on tu« same terms as those specified by Tftr foreign suppliers and with any guarantees required as to its standard. But the radium to cure cancer-stricken Australians is being brought from tne fields of the Belgian Congo, where it is recovered? by natives. For years a Collins Street specialist has used Australian radium, the Alfred Hospital is reported to be using it, and recently a quantity was sent to a Queensland hospital. The Belgian Congo has had a virtual monopoly of radium supplies, but in the last few years over 50 milligrammes have been won from the radium fields at Mount Painter, in South AustraliaThe order for this £lOO,OOO worth of radium would have materially aiscu the development of the industry, antf the employment of more Australians. Its operations have been financed by Australians, and carried out by Australian technical men and workmen. It has languished to some extent because of the strong financial backing behind the Congo interests.