Citation

Boyer P. J. Am. Med. Assoc. JAMA 1985; 254(5): 633-643.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1985, American Medical Association)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

3892070

Abstract

Boyer traces the American medical profession's involvement with the nuclear war issue from World War II to 1963. Research on the effects of radiation began with the Manhattan Project in 1942, and continued in Hiroshima and Nagasaki after the war. Interest in the narrow clinical aspects of radiation was rarely matched by an awareness of the social and medical implications of nuclear war, as attention focused instead on optimistic predictions about the benefits of atomic medicine. The medical community entered wholeheartedly into Cold War civil defense planning, and physicians and the public were encouraged to believe that a nuclear attack was survivable with advance planning. Medical activism against nuclear war began in the late 1950s and peaked in 1962 to 1963 with a series of New England Journal of Medicine articles, laying the foundation for physicians' renewed involvement in the 1980s.

Language: en