Preventing Nuclear

Report Don G. Bates Preventing Nuclear War: What Physicians Can Achieve SUMMARY SOMMAIRE On its fifth anniversary, the International A l'occasion de son cinquieme anniversaire, on a accorde le Prix Nobel de la paix a l'Organisation Physicians for the Prevention of Nudear War internationale des medecins pronant la prevention was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. The de la guerre nucleaire. Deux cardiologues de Boston organization was conceived by two Boston ont concu cette organisation a laquelle se sont joints cardiologists who joined with some Soviet des collegues sovietiques pour creer un forum colleagues to create an international forum for international dont le but etait de considerer les consequences medicales d'une guerre nucleaire et considering the medical consequences of and les moyens de la prevenir. Cet article, ecrit par means for preventing nudear war. This article l'archiviste de l'Organisation, documente la difficulte by the orgarization's archivist documents its de sa progression et sa croissance remarquable. Le difficult progress yet remarkable growth. fait de surmonter des obstacles serieux a contribue a Overcoming serious obstades has added to its augmenter sa force et sa credibilite. L'Organisation strength and credibility: now involving compte actuellement 145,000 membres repartis dans 41 pays. Elle est devenue le porte-parole organizations with 145,000 members in 41 international des medecins preoccupes par la guerre countries, IPPNW has become the nucle'aire. international voice of medicine's concern about nudear war. (Can Fam Physician 1986; Key words: Nudear war, prevention, 32:163-166.) physicians .....50- Mill.. Dr. Bates is the Thomas F. sons for taking stock of what has hap- Lown's efforts expanded to an inter- Cotton Professor of the History of pened and what has been accom- national scale as a result of his cardio- Medicine at McGill University and plished. logical research in the 1970s. During Canada's representative on the the Soviet-American collaborative governing council of the Beginnings medical research spawned by d6tente, International Physicians for the IPPNW's beginnings can be traced Lown began to work with Dr. Evgueni Prevention of Nuclear War. to two Boston cardiologists, Drs. Ber- Chazov, Director General of the Na- Reprint requests to: Dr. Don Bates, nard Lown and James Muller. Lown, tional Cardiological Research Centre 3655 Drummond Street, Montreal, professor of cardiology at Harvard's in Moscow. The subject of their re- PQ. H3G 1Y6. School of Public Health, began his search was sudden death in patients public opposition to nuclear weapons with heart disease. It is easy to under- in the early 1960s when he and a stand how their minds could turn to the number of other Boston doctors started problem of nuclear war and its threat W HEN THE International Physi- Physicians for Social Responsibility of sudden death for a large part of the cians for the Prevention of Nu- (PSR/US). Among their most notable world's population. clear War (IPPNW) met in Budapest at activities at that time was a group of Jim Muller's interests in Soviet the end of June, it marked the fifth articles in the New England Journal of medicine and the threat of nuclear war birthday of this remarkable organiza- Medicine 1-5 which outlined the medical were inspired by two events. As a sec- tion. This anniversary, and the fact effects of a nuclear war. Their findings ond-year medical student at Johns that IPPNW is the winner of the 1985 were of such interest that the U.S. Hopkins in 1967, Muller heard a talk Nobel Peace Prize are two good rea- Pentagon ordered 200 reprints! by the president of the Hopkins hospi- CAN. FAM. PHYSICIAN Vol. 32: JANUARY 1986 163 tal, Dr. Russell Nelson, about his re- tionship became even closer. these preliminary discussions were cent visit to the Soviet Union. Having Muller's experience with Soviet beset by political difficulties until each studied Russian as an undergraduate, medicine, with Chazov, and with the side understood how the other side re- Muller decided, with Nelson's help, to threat of nuclear war, proceeded quite lated to its own government. take a six-month elective at the First separately from that of Bernard Lown. For their part, the Soviet doctors in- Moscow Medical College. Within Yet, by the mid 1970s, both men were volved are closely connected with the months of hearing Nelson, Muller in the same specialty, at the same insti- Soviet leadership. For example, Cha- went to a series of lectures on the tution. Moreover, within cardiology it- zov, Ilyin, and Kuzin are all members threat of nuclear war by well-known self, Muller had come to regard Lown of the prestigious Soviet Academy of Hopkins psychotherapist, Jerome as his teacher and mentor. Medical Sciences. Moreover, Chazov Frank. Deeply moved by what Frank Both men independently came to the was a member of the medical team had to say, and noting the obvious idea, first in 1978, that there should be looking after Leonid Brezhnev before connection with his coming trip, some kind of joint effort by U.S. and he died. These men could hardly be Muller decided to dedicate himself to Soviet doctors to alert their two coun- expected to dissent from a government improved relations between Soviets tries to the growing peril and conse- viewpoint that they share. For the and Americans. quences of nuclear war. Both knew, Americans, any public stance that ap- Out of his Moscow experience, from first-hand experience, that Soviet peared to be based solely on Soviet Muller learned two things: how to physicians were equally concerned criticism of the U.S. government's po- speak the language, and how indiffer- about the threat. Both believed that sition would destroy their credibility at ent people were to the threat of nuclear they could count on their cooperation home. war. Other American students in in such a venture. To reflect these realities, one of the Moscow thought he was slightly In 1979, Lown wrote a number of ground rules established at Geneva crazy, while their Soviet counterparts letters to Soviet officials but it was was that, in all public utterances, any were studiously unhelpful. Soviet doc- ultimately with Chazov, that earnest criticism of the superpowers would be tors, on the other hand, were sympa- negotiations began. At first Chazov bilateral. Other guidelines included fo- thetic and Dr. Mikhail Kuzin, dean of doubted what could be achieved but fi- cussing their attention exclusively on the medical college, eagerly cooper- nally agreed to meet in Geneva in De- the issue of nuclear war, dealing with ated with Muller in establishing a med- cember, 1980, to establish,. ground it strictly as a consequence of their ical student exchange with Hopkins. rules for some kind of joint confer- professional commitments to protect But, on his return to the United States, ence. Muller and Lown were accom- life and preserve health, and giving Muller found it impossible to arouse panied by Dr. Eric Chivian, staff psy- their activities and findings wide pub- interest in this arrangement. chiatrist at the Massachusetts Institute lic exposure in the two countries. For a time Muller abandoned his ef- of Technology, who had recently been Besides hammering out an agreed forts, but, in 1970, he again found helping Dr. Helen Caldicott to resur- set of principles upon which a confer- himself in Moscow, this time as an rect the long dormant PSR/US. With ence could be based, the Geneva aide to the assistant secretary of Chazov was Dr. Leonid Ilyin, Director founders decided to broaden represen- health, Dr. Roger Egeberg. In this ca- of the Institute of Biophysics of the tation at the coming congress to in- pacity, Muller promoted the idea of an U.S.S.R. Ministry of Public Health, clude Britain and Germany, and, for extensive exchange between the two and chairman of the National Commis- obvious reasons, Japan. countries in the health field, as a way sion for Radiological Protection. By the time of that first congress, in of promoting peace. Egeberg agreed The other Soviet was Dr. Mikhail Airlie, Virginia in March, 1981, the and Muller found himself negotiating Kuzin, now director of the Vishnevsky original concept of a joint conference agreements on the study of cancer, Institute of Surgery. The reunion of had evolved into a fully international heart disease, and environmental Kuzin and his erstwhile student, gathering. Eleven countries were re- health that were subsequently signed Muller, so many years after they had presented by over 70 delegates, in- by Brezhnev and Nixon. In the first of set up the unsuccessful student ex- cluding four from Canada.6 At the a number of remarkable coincidences, change, was largely coincidental. same time, the international situation one result of these agreements was the Kuzin, a friend of Chazov since early had become more precarious. Ronald collaboration between Lown and Cha- postgraduate days, had been chosen Reagan had just been swom in as the zov on cardiac sudden death. for the Geneva discussions because of new U.S. president and the mood of The criss-crossing of Lown's and his experience with war injuries. In- the American delegation was one of Muller's interests do not end there. deed, Kuzin had read the 1962 caution. One false step in the now con- Also in 1970, Muller was assigned to a PSR/US article on the medical effects servative political climate of the delegation of Soviet physicians who of nuclear war when it first appeared. United States would have meant an in- were visiting the United States. That stant loss of credibility for the infant delegation was headed by Dr.

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