Radium fad

The radium fad or radium craze of the early 20th century was an early form of radioactive quackery that resulted in widespread marketing of radium-infused products as being beneficial to health. Many radium products contained no actual radium, in part because it was prohibitively expensive, which turned out to be a grace, as high levels of radium exposure can result in radiation-induced cancer.

The fad began to fizzle out following the emergence of research that radium could be hazardous to health, and high-profile cases such as the Radium Girls and the death of Eben Byers, which proved this fact.

In the United States, the 1938 Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act outlawed deceptive packaging, further preventing companies being able to use radium as a marketing tool.