Speaking up to prevent disaster

What did I learn at my 68th medical reunion at the Harvard Medical School (HMS)? I learned, from an article written by Stephanie Dutchen, that my brilliant classmate, Melvin Glimcher, physician, engineer and professor, had created the myoelectric elbow. Dubbed “the Boston Arm”, this device is a godsend to upper arm amputees. But I learned that such a great medical achievement, and others, might be allowed to vanish in a split second and that it’s time for the medical profession to speak up to prevent nuclear disaster.

An article authored by Jake Miller, a science writer in the HMS Office of Communications and External Relations, and published in Harvard Medicine, shows how complacent we’ve become about the catastrophic consequences of nuclear war.

Miller relates that Dr. Ira Helfand, in Springfield, Mass., has been a leader of Physicians for Social Responsibility and International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW). He’s also a member of a committee to abolish nuclear weapons.

Today, we’ve become accustomed to the threat of nuclear conflict. In the 1950s North Americans built fall-out shelters to protect against nuclear radiation. Today we hear nothing about safety precautions. But daily the media reports U.S. President Trump and Kim Jongun of North Korea tossing insults at one another with threats of nuclear destruction.

Heland states that the public claims to understand the dangers of nuclear conflict. But when he explains the details of what could actually happen “their pupils dilate”.

Professor Bernard Lown of HMS, a cardiologist and inventor of the DC defibrillator, after attending a talk about nuclear war, remarked, “a nuclear bomb is not just a bigger bomb, it kills everything, not just humans, and pollutes everything. It leaves a residue of radiation, causesgenetic changes, and a pathology that is passed from generation to generation.”