Weapons of mass destruction

ABSTRACT

The memory of the three most destructive wars in our life time leading to mass destruction, loss of lives and disability is still vividly fresh in our minds. Vietnam, Afghanistan and now Gulf war have produced catostrophic casualties and environmental changes. Financial losses are not to be considered. The biological, chemical and nuclear weapons might have added to the atmospheric pollution. This editorial from JAMA gives a beautiful illustration of such problems in the so called age of civilization. The editorial is in original. "The role of physicians and other health workers in the preservation and promotion of peace is the most significant factor for the attainment of health for all." This 1981 resolution of the World Health Assembly [resolution WHA 34.38] recognizes that the greatest threats to the health of the people of the world lie not in specific forms of acute or chronic disease. not even in poverty, hunger, or homelessness, but rather in the consequences of war. Any war, and even preparation for war, can of course lead to poverty, hunger, homelessness, and disease. Indeed, these consequences make even "victory," or the quest for "national security" through massive arms expenditures. seem hollow. Among the dangers of war, the greatest single threat lies in weapons of indiscriminate mass destruction, which THE JOURNAL recognizes annually with its Hiroshima anniversary Issue