Several months ago , healthh officials said they had discovered a number of contaminated pieces of gold jewelry , which may have caused skin irritations to their owners . Since the start of the year , health officials have spotted about 150 pieces of radioactive jewelry
, nearly half of which were class rings or pins from the
Buffalo area , dating back to the 1930s and 1940s . Some of the wearers of radioactive jewelry eventually had fingers amputated because of cancer
— Syracuse Herald-American , August 30 , 19811
The effect of radioactive wedding rings on ring fingers was first documented in a 1967 JAMA paper by Simon and Harley . The authors reported that a husband and wife developed radiodermatitis on their ring fingers beginning shortly after their marriage 26 years earlier . And a 1968 JAMA letter reported a case of squamous cell carcinoma , which equired amputation of the ring finger . There was even a wrongful death suit in 1983 , which was thrown out .