Denial, distress and hope: why we need to talk about nuclear war

Correspondence to Dr John Launer, Associate Editor, Postgraduate Medical Journal, London, UK; johnlauner@aol.com Five years ago, when the world felt a safer place than it does at the moment, I wrote in this column about nuclear war and its prevention.1 I described some of the effects of nuclear weapons and discussed the possibility of a nuclear exchange as a result of a technological error or miscalculation – something that has been narrowly averted several times. First steps One of the first things we need to do, I suggest, is acknowledge our own personal fears. In the ensuing weeks and months, hundreds of thousands at a greater distance from the blast could die from radiation-induced illnesses as the mushroom cloud dispersed. [...]most people in the northern hemisphere would die of infection, starvation or exposure.