ICAN around the world
Nuclear weapons, medicine and psychology
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Nuclear weapons and human health
According to the Hippocratic Oath, every physician pledges to serve his or her neighbour and save what life could be saved. For physicians and medical workers all over the world, the struggle for a world free of nuclear weapons is natural and logical. The World Health Organization wrote in a 1983 report that “nuclear weapons constitute the greatest immediate threat to the health and survival of mankind”.
A nuclear explosion can cause damage to human beings in a number of ways — immediately and in the longer term. Nuclear weapons harm both living humans and foetuses in their mothers’ wombs. A nuclear explosion targeted on a city will damage hospitals and kill and injures medical staff, making it difficult to provide help for survivors. In Hiroshima, 140,000 people were killed by the atomic bomb. The total number of inhabitants of Hiroshima at the time is estimated at 350,000, which means about 40 percent of the inhabitants were killed. In Nagasaki, the atomic bomb killed more than 70,000 and injured many more.
When looking at health consequences of nuclear weapons use, it is important to keep in mind that the bomb Little Boy that was detonated on Hiroshima had an explosive power equalling 15 kiloton of TNT. Fat Man, detonated on Nagasaki, had an explosive power of about 21 kiloton. Nuclear weapons in modern arsenals are much more powerful — for example, one of the British Trident nuclear submarines has a total firepower of 24 megaton of TNT. (One megaton is one thousand kilotons.) This means that some of today’s 23,300 nuclear weapons have a fire power more than 1000 times greater than the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
A nuclear explosion creates an enormous shockwave that reaches a speed of many hundreds of kilometres an hour. The blast kills people close to ground zero, and causes lung injuries, ear damage and internal bleeding. The blast wave tears apart buildings and infrastructure far away from ground zero. Glass, bricks, concrete and wooden parts from destroyed buildings are hurled up in the air by the blast, threatening the lives of more people.
The explosion also causes thermal radiation at a temperature so intense that practically everything is vaporized. Severe burns and eye injuries are also consequences of the thermal pulse. The heat wave will ignite fires that may combine together and become immense firestorms, spreading out from the site of explosion. Within these areas, even people in underground shelters will die because of heat, lack of oxygen or carbon monoxide or dioxide poisoning.
One thing that sets nuclear weapons apart from conventional arms is that the former kill and wound through radiation. This damage is caused by gamma and neutron radiation in the initial blast, as well as beta and alpha radiation in the radioactive fallout. If exposed to a deadly dose of radiation, death caused by radiation sickness can occur quickly or within a few months. The systems for blood production and infection defence in the bone marrow are very sensitive to radiation.
When a somatic cell is irradiated, the energy carried by the radiation is transferred to the cell. There is a risk that the DNA molecule contained in the cell is damaged, either directly by the radiation or by so-called free radicals — molecules that are harmful to DNA. Unless the DNA molecule can be repaired, the cell may either die or become a mutant or cancer cell. Leukaemia develops within a few years, while cancer tumours in internal organs may show after a longer period of time, even many decades later. Radiation may also harm the gene pool, thereby affecting future generations.
Long after a nuclear explosion, radioactivity will be dispersed in the area close to ground zero and, depending on weather and winds, far away. This is called radioactive fallout. Humans are affected directly if the skin gets in contact with the fine particles. Radioactive particles can also harm indirectly, for example, when people drink milk from cows that have grazed on contaminated grass or through meat or vegetables that have absorbed radioactive substances from the fallout.
The effects of the nuclear winter
A large-scale nuclear war would cause such changes in the climate that we refer to it as “nuclear winter”. But even a limited, regional nuclear war would be enough to lower the temperature on Earth by several degrees. A nuclear winter would be caused by the enormous amount of soot from excessive firestorms in cities and forests. These fires would result in massive clouds of soot over the continents. The soot clouds may linger for many years, making the world cold and dark. In the inner continents, the temperature may drop more than 10 degrees Celsius.
Farming and agriculture would be significantly affected by the lack of heat and rainfall. Farmers would have smaller harvests, resulting in a worldwide famine. Furthermore, food scarcity may lead to armed conflicts over the limited resources available — causing even more death and injury. It would also be difficult for the survivors of a nuclear war to find safe drinking water, which would lead to severe epidemics and pandemics.
Cancer risk after a nuclear explosion
The risk of developing cancer increases among the survivors of a nuclear explosion and among those exposed to radiation. The long-term effects of radiation include a number of diseases, such as cancer of the breast, thyroid, lung and blood. The risk for developing leukaemia increases if exposed to radiation at a young age — with by far the highest risks occurring among women exposed as young children.
The effects of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki can still be seen. They have led to a significant increase in cancer rates among survivors, which can be seen in comparing cancer rates with other similar areas — an increase that can only be explained by the effects of the nuclear explosion. As a result of the long time it takes for cancer to develop after the exposure to radiation, the number of cancer victims has not yet reached its peak.
The United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, France and China have signed the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, and pledged not to test nuclear weapons pending the entry into force of the treaty. Thus, large-scale nuclear testing has ended, but the health effects from more than 2000 nuclear tests conducted since 1945 is an ongoing plague. Estimates show that radioactive fallout from atmospheric nuclear testing will lead to more than two million cases of cancer globally.
Nuclear weapons and reproductive health
In areas close to nuclear test sites as well as after the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, an increase in foetal damage has been seen. Since rapidly changing cellular tissue is especially sensitive to radiation, the foetus is particularly vulnerable. Exposure of foetuses to radiation has been shown to increase the risk of childhood cancer. In addition, children exposed as foetuses to the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs had a significantly increased rate of microcephaly and intellectual disability.
Extensive research with animals has proved that radiation causes hereditary malformations. However, it has not yet been confirmed that the same applies to humans. This may be due to the fact that many genetic changes are recessive, that is, they cause changes only if both parents carry the same predisposition. Such disabilities are difficult to demonstrate by studies of populations, for example, because they may not show in the first generation.
Children of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
Japanese children affected by the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings are often referred to as “pika”, which means “children of the flash”. These are the children who were still in their mothers’ wombs in 1945, at the time of the bombings. Studies have shown a significant increase in mental retardation in children to mothers who were exposed to radiation when the bombs exploded. Of 1600 children in the study, 25 cases of mental retardation were found, as compared to five cases in a normal population.
Within a decade of the atom bombings, researchers had been able to document brain damage and mental retardation in children of mothers who were within 2km from the bomb epicentre. In recent years, studies have been conducted using previous data, showing a significant connection between how many weeks pregnant the woman was and the severity of brain damage in the child. In particular, foetuses between 8 and 15 weeks were the most sensitive and developed the most severe brain damage. Mental retardation, underdeveloped head size, bad results in school and in IQ tests are examples of problems with these children.
Researchers at the Health Science Center of Texas University point out that the mental retardation is not necessarily a result of radiation alone, but perhaps also other factors. The researchers mention that many of the pregnant women lost consciousness when the blast hit or when hit by falling debris from the explosion. Malnutrition, infections and severe stress and worry over the war could also have played a role.
The pika children are adults today, more than 60 years after the atom bombings. Many of them have had problems finding a place in Japanese society. They remind people around them of the terrible things that happened at the end of World War II — events that modern-day Japan would rather not think about every day. Many of them have been institutionalized and have had trouble getting education and jobs.
Health care after a nuclear explosion
A nuclear war would also have devastating consequences for the health-care system. Hospitals would be destroyed, physicians and nurses killed and there would be an acute scarcity of medical resources. It would be extremely difficult to provide help for the surviving victims. Many of those who under normal circumstances could be saved would inevitably die. In the Hiroshima bombing, 65 out of 150 doctors in the city were killed. At the largest hospital, run by the Red Cross, six doctors and ten nurses were healthy enough to work — only one completely uninjured.
A nuclear war would make it difficult for survivors to take care of their hygiene. The water would be contaminated, people would have to share tight quarters and it would be hard to keep a functioning waste management system. Insects and micro-organisms with a high tolerance to radioactivity would flourish. Bad hygiene and an increase of insects and vermin would lead to an increase of infectious diseases, which may lead to epidemics and pandemics.
Nuclear weapons and the human psyche
We talk a lot about the effects of nuclear weapons on human health, but it is also important to ask what effects the knowledge of the world’s nuclear arsenals and their destructive power may have on the human psyche. Do we really feel comfortable living under the constant threat of annihilation posed by more than 23,300 nuclear weapons? Many of us may not even have the energy to think about it, because the idea seems frightening, abstract and overwhelming.
Even though nuclear weapons are high-tech devices, we have to remember that in the end it is man who holds the finger on the trigger; it is man who has developed these weapons and who controls them and has the capacity to launch them — as well as get rid of them. History shows that on a number of occasions man has been a hair’s breadth from using nuclear weapons by mistake, due to human errors and misinterpretations. How would it feel to be the one responsible for life and death, for the “to be or not to be” of humanity?
Only twice during the nuclear age have nuclear weapons been used in war: in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945. Close to 200,000 people were killed, but many survived. The Japanese call these survivors of the bomb hibakusha. Today, many of the hibakusha still alive travel the world to tell about their experience and memories. Many of them tell sad stories of exclusion and social stigmatisation, of how society has rather not seen and offered a place for them, since they carry the memory of the terrible things that affected Japan in 1945.