You may be interested in this story https://www.wabe.org/radium-girls-the-true-story-of-poisoned-factory-workers-who-fought-back/ https://www.wabe.org/radium-gi

You may be interested in this story https://www.wabe.org/radium-girls-the-true-story-of-poisoned-factory-workers-who-fought-back/ https://www.wabe.org/radium-girls-the-true-story-of-poisoned... which does involve people literally eating radium. > The factory manufactured glow-in-the-dark watch dials that used radium to make them luminous. > The women would dip their brushes into radium, lick the tip of the brushes to give them a precise point, and paint the numbers onto the dial. That direct contact and exposure led to many women dying from radium poisoning.