After the chemist and physicist Marie Curie discovered radioactivity, radioactive elements were incorporated into numerous everyday objects. This cost a professional athlete his life after he consumed 1,400 energy drinks that could have appeared in Fallout 76.
What kind of energy drink was it? In the 1920s and 30s, radioactive everyday items and food became a new fad.
- There was toothpaste with radium and thorium, whose radiation was supposed to massage the gums to keep them healthy.
- In a watch factory, female workers painted wristwatches with luminescent paint containing radium. Since they moistened the brush with their tongues multiple times a day, they came into contact with the radioactive substance.
- In Burkbraun-Radium chocolate, the deadly radium was also used. In its own advertising statements, it was claimed that radium had a rejuvenating effect and promoted health.
Among the foods that were enriched with radium was the energy drink Radithor. It contained distilled water as well as radium isotopes 226 and 228. The drink was described as a cure for living dead
and as eternal sunshine
that would cure many diseases.
The golfer Eben Byers became the brand ambassador for this energy drink. But what happened to him over the years, the doctors of that time could not have guessed.
Radioactivity also plays a significant role in Fallout. Check out the trailer for Fallout 76 here:
Golf athlete died from radioactive energy drink
What happened to Eben Byers? The man consulted a doctor after breaking his arm. There, he was recommended the radioactive Radithor. Byers then consumed about 1,400 bottles over the course of two years.
This led him to ingest three times the lethal dose for a human. The consequences were brutal:
- The radium accumulated in his bones, making them porous.
- Byers initially lost weight and suffered from headaches.
- His teeth gradually fell out, and eventually, he lost a significant part of his lower jaw. Over time, more holes even formed in his skull.
- Due to the immense cellular damage, Byers developed cancer and died at the age of 52.
Even Byers’ corpse emitted so much radioactivity that his body was buried in a lead coffin. Lead is a material that shields radioactive radiation and is still used in nuclear medicine today (via Röhr+Stolberg).
Fortunately, today it is inconceivable for radioactive materials to be used in food or everyday items. Instead, we still have video games like Fallout, which deal thematically with radioactivity and give us a glimpse of how sick the deadly radiation can make us.
