Medical Aspects of Global Nuclear War

by Jeffrey Dach MD

Steven Starr is a professor at the University of Missouri who teaches a college level course on the consequences of Nuclear War.  In this 16 minute video, Dr. Starr explains what happens after an “accident”  triggers a nuclear first strike with subsequent exchange of the remaining arsenal of nuclear weapons.

Thousands of nuclear detonations obliterate all major cities in massive fireballs.  These massive fireballs create many tons of black smoke that rise to the stratosphere blocking sunlight for the next 3-10 years. This creates a nuclear winter with freezing temperatures killing all crops. With complete cessation of food production, all humans and animals die of starvation. We haven’t even touched on health effects of radiation contamination.

Nuclear winter is a mass extinction phenomenon. What are the medical aspects of nuclear winter? This is a terminal medical catastrophe with no known treatment other than prevention.

===============================================

Jeffrey Dach MD
7450 Griffin Road Suite 1890/190
Davie, Fl 33314
954-792-4663

References

1) Nuclear War, Nuclear Winter, and Human Extinction By Federation of American Scientists • October 14, 2015 by Steven Starr

That is, a nuclear winter would cause most humans and large animals to die from nuclear famine in a mass extinction event similar to the one that wiped out the dinosaurs.\

These mass fires, many of which would rage over large cities and industrial areas, would release many tens of millions of tons of black carbon soot and smoke (up to 180 million tons, according to peer-reviewed studies), which would rise rapidly above cloud level and into the stratosphere

The smoke from a war fought with strategic nuclear weapons would quickly prevent up to 70% of sunlight from reaching the surface of the Northern Hemisphere and 35% of sunlight from reaching the surface of the Southern Hemisphere. Such an enormous loss of warming sunlight would produce Ice Age weather conditions on Earth in a matter of weeks. For a period of 1-3 years following the war, temperatures would fall below freezing every day in the central agricultural zones of North America and Eurasia.

Nuclear winter would cause average global surface temperatures to become colder than they were at the height of the last Ice Age. Such extreme cold would eliminate growing seasons for many years, probably for a decade or longer. Can you imagine a winter that lasts for ten years?

The results of such a scenario are obvious. Temperatures would be much too cold to grow food, and they would remain this way long enough to cause most humans and animals to starve to death.

the catastrophic environmental consequences of nuclear war – has been effectively dropped from the global discussion of nuclear weaponry.

2) Nuclear Famine Steven Starr …The long-term environmental consequences of a nuclear war between the US and Russia could kill most humans and land animals. An India-Pakistan nuclear war could cause 2 billion people to starve to death. Nuclear war threatens all nations and peoples.

3) Nuclear Famine . org  About Steven Starr

4) Steven Starr is the director of the University of Missouri’s Clinical Laboratory Science Program, as well as a senior scientist at the Physicians for Social Responsibility. He has been published in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists and the Strategic Arms Reduction (STAR) website of the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology; he also maintains the website Nuclear Darkness. Starr also teaches a class on the Environmental, Health and Social Effects of nuclear weapons at the University of Missouri.

5) Atomic Bombing of Japan images Courtesy of Wikimedia

Left picture : At the time this photo was made, smoke billowed 20,000 feet above Hiroshima while smoke from the burst of the first atomic bomb had spread over 10,000 feet on the target at the base of the rising column. Six planes of the 509th Composite Group participated in this mission: one to carry the bomb (Enola Gay), one to take scientific measurements of the blast (The Great Artiste), the third to take photographs (Necessary Evil), while the others flew approximately an hour ahead to act as weather scouts (08/06/1945). Bad weather would disqualify a target as the scientists insisted on a visual delivery. The primary target was Hiroshima, the secondary was Kokura, and the tertiary was Nagasaki.
Right picture : Atomic bombing of Nagasaki on August 9, 1945, taken by Charles Levy.

Published on January 31st, 2023 by Jeffrey Dach MD