DOCTORS FOR DISASTER PREPAREDNESS NEWSLETTER
January, 1991 Vol. VIII, No. 1
THE NULL HYPOTHESIS OF NUCLEAR WAR
By Gerald Looney, MD
[Saddam Hussein, or another like him, may someday put the Null Hypothesis to the experimental test. A review of these widely disseminated beliefs is timely as a deadline draws near--Ed.]
1. Atomic bombs were the unique product of Yankee ingenuity, representing the most expensive weapons project of World War II and continuing to consume more American defense funds than any other project.
2. ....The detonations at Hiroshima and Nagasaki did serve to conclusively demonstrate to all the world the impossibility of surviving explosions within several miles of Ground Zero, the uselessness of shelters...as protection against heat, blast, and radiation effects, and the pronounced carcinogenic and mutagenic changes induced in the tissues of survivors.
3. As the instigator and inventor of nuclear weapons during the war and the accelerator of weapons development following the war, the US forced the world into a nuclear arms race, thereby bearing major responsibility for the most devastating weapon of all, the fission-fusion hydrogen bomb.
4. Since the US failed to share war secrets with her war-time ally, the USSR, and failed to accept or cooperate with Soviet interests since the war, we are the prime cause of escalations in nuclear arms and in world tensions; conversely, compassion and cooperation in the US will permanently prevent all future nuclear conflict.
5. The only significant threat to the US now and in the future is from the USSR.
6. The detonation of a single nuclear weapon from any source will automatically and inevitably trigger the launch of every American and Soviet missile.
7. On both sides of the arms race, there has been a steady and inexorable growth in the size and destructive power of individual weapons as well as the total number of weapons, and the chance of accidental war has never been greater.
8. There is no defense from nuclear weapons and no way to survive their after-effects, so it is unethical for medical personnel to plan help for survivors; foolish attempts to protect civilians are a fraudulent use of public funds, encouraging reckless risk-taking by military and political leaders and actually increasing the likelihood of nuclear war.
9. Nuclear war of any size would mean the immediate or ultimate loss of human life from the face of the earth.
10. Therefore, there is nothing citizens can do to protect themselves or their families now or in the future, so everyone should abandon all civilian war preparedness and place total faith in preventing the explosion of any nuclear weapon.
The theory's self-prescribed lack of preparedness leads to a potentially self-fulfilling prophecy with millions of needless deaths if faith and prevention fail. It seemed appropriate to borrow a scientific term, Null Hypothesis, to symbolize this nihilism and to remind everyone that the theory itself appears to be null and void since every single premise can be shown to be patently false, or at best, dubious.
NDMS MAY GAIN SUPPORT OF PSR
When the National Disaster Medical System was first introduced in Tucson, at a 1985 meeting at the Pima County Medical Society building, representatives of Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR) were present to object. They believed that the major object of the program was a link to a potential war-fighting effort.
In an earthquake exercise a couple of years ago, every Tucson hospital made beds available─with the exception of one of the two major trauma centers, University Hospital. Due to the influence of PSR, the medical staff declined to support NDMS.
In the past year, PSR has moderated its opposition to disaster planning. (Previously, it called it a ``mask for civil defense.'') A PSR spokesman, Mr. Charles Johnson of Nuclear Free America, told emergency managers attending a Professional Development Seminar at the National Emergency Training Center in Emmitsburg, MD, that PSR favored expanding NDMS.
In her comments to the US Senate concerning the nomination of FEMA Director Wallace Stickney, PSR President Jennifer Leaning, MD, stated that ``the current version of NDMS has many fine features. It is not sufficiently developed, it lacks resources, and it is not well integrated with local and state emergency response, disaster, and medical personnel.'' She said that she favored improving the program.
At a December 20 meeting of the Tucson NDMS committee, it was announced that University Hospital might reconsider its nonparticipation.
The same meeting illustrated the truth of Dr. Leaning's criticisms. After five years, NDMS has located a site for the reception of casualties, a building owned by Learjet that was formerly used for manufacturing aircraft. (Learjet itself is a casualty of economics, largely the liability crisis.) The same building will house the remnants of a packaged disaster hospital from the 1950s now residing in a Phelps-Dodge warehouse in Bisbee.
PSR's position on civil defense has not changed. Leaning's testimony also called for eliminating programs and training materials oriented toward nuclear war preparedness. One of the ``fine features'' of NDMS might actually be that it specifically denies any response capability in the event of nuclear war. (If it has not accepted, it has certainly not rejected the Null Hypothesis.) The official definition of NDMS is: ``a disaster response system designed to provide a nationwide network of agencies and hospitals committed to care for the victims of a catastrophic disaster or conventional military conflict'' (emphasis added). (Are chemical weapons ``conventional''?)
DDP EXHIBIT SLATED FOR EMEX91
DDP President Gerald Looney, MD, will attend EMEX91 and display DDP materials. The program is designed for emergency responders, including medical personnel, police, firefighters, volunteer groups, and public works engineers. Equipment ranging from auxiliary power systems to protective clothing to redundant communications links will be on display. The program will cover all aspects of disaster management from prevention to recovery.
The meeting will be held at the Sands Expo and Convention Center in Las Vegas, Nevada, January 16-18, 1991. For details on the program, call DDP at 602-325-2680, or the Interface Group in Needham, MA, 617-449-6600.