Nuclear War: The Medical and Biological Consequences—Soviet Physicians' Viewpoint

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Yevgeni I. Chazov, MD, has been a spokesman conjointly with US physicians for an international effort by physicians to prevent nuclear war¹. This book, however, is already out of date as a scientific treatise on the consequences of nuclear war. While Dr Chazov and his coauthors concur with the generally accepted conclusion that nuclear warfare results in biologic devastation, they make only a passing reference to the view that nuclear warfare will probably result in nuclear winter—a catastrophe far worse than the authors' description of the consequences of nuclear war. On page 97, they say, "nuclear explosions would cloak the atmosphere in a dark veil which would hinder sunlight for many weeks." If nuclear winter follows in the wake of nuclear warfare, the authors' efforts to distinguish between the effects of nuclear weapons and those of nuclear war is a distinction without a difference.