Weapons of Mass Destruction

1
WeaponsofMass Destruction

• Martin Donohoe

2
Outline

• The history and epidemiology of war
• Nuclear weapons
• Chemical weapons
• Biological weapons

3
Outline

• Economic and environmental consequences of
  militarism and war
• Health consequences of militarism and war
• Contemporary issues

4
History of war

• 10,000 yrs ago agriculture
• Stable populations, division of labor, warrior
  class
• 3500 yrs ago bronze weapons and armor
• 2200 yrs ago iron
• 1900 yrs ago - horses

5
History of war

• Ninth Century China - bombs developed
• Thirteenth Century China rockets
• Forgotten until the 19th Century
• 1783 - Balloon
• 1903 - Airplane
• 20th Century - WMDs

6
History of War

• Belief that each new invention would eliminate
  warfare
• Instead, increased casualties, killing at a
  distance

7
Epidemiology of Warfare

• Deaths in war
• 17th 19th Century 11-19/million population
• 20th Century 183/million population
• Increasing casualties to civilians
• 10 late 19th Century
• 85-90 in 20th Century

8
Contemporary Wars

• 250 wars in the 20th Century
• Incidence of war rising since 1950
• Most conflicts within poor states
• 27 separate civil wars currently underway
• 19 involve U.S.-supplied weapons

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War Deaths, 1945-2000
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Consequences of War

• Deaths, injuries, psychological sequelae
• Collapse of health care system affecting those
  with acute and chronic illnesses
• Famine

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Consequences of War

• Refugees
• Environmental degradation
• Increasing poverty and debt
• All lead to recurrent cycles of violence

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Atomic Weapons - History

• Hiroshima, August 6, 1945
• The day that humanity started taking its final
  exam Buckminster Fuller
• 15 kiloton bomb, 140,000 deaths
• Nagasaki, August 9, 1945
• 22 kiloton bomb, 70,000 casualties

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Atomic Weapons Other Victims

• Hundreds of thousands of hibakusha atomic bomb
  survivors
• 80,000 cancers (15,000 fatal) in US citizens as a
  result of fallout from atmospheric testing
• NCI/CDC

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Atomic Weapons Today

• 20,000 nuclear weapons
• Several thousand megatons
• US and Russia have 13,000 actively deployed
  warheads

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Atomic Weapons Today

• 2500 (US) and 2000 (Russia) on high alert
• Fired within 15 minutes, reach targets in 30
  minutes
• Vastly redundant arsenal
• 150-200 weapons adequate to destroy all major
  urban centers in Russia

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Atomic Weapons Today

• Accidental intermediate-sized launch of weapons
  from a single Russian submarine would immediately
  kill 6.8 million Americans in 8 cities

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Nuclear Weapons Oops!

• Pentagon 32 nuclear weapons accidents since 1950
• GAO 233
• Since 1950, 10 nuclear weapons lost and never
  recovered
• All laying on seabed, potentially leaking
  radioactivity

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Effects of a Nuclear Explosion

• Immediate
• Vaporized by thermal radiation
• Crushed by blast wave
• Burned and suffocated by firestorm

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Effects of a Nuclear Explosion

• Intermediate
• Suffering, painful deaths
• Health care personnel/resources overwhelmed
• Famine
• Refugees
• Devastated transportation infrastructure

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Effects of a Nuclear Explosion

• Late effects
• Cancer
• Psychological trauma
• Nuclear winter (mass starvation due to disruption
  of agricultural, transportation, industrial and
  health care systems)

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Effects of a 20 megaton nuclear explosion

• Ground zero ? 2 miles
• Fireball hotter than sun
• everything vaporized
• 2 - 4 miles
• Buildings ripped apart and leveled

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Effects of a 20 megaton nuclear explosion

• 4 - 10 miles
• Sheet metal melts concrete buildings heavily
  damaged (all others leveled)
• 16 miles
• 100 mph winds, firestorm, T 1400 C
• 100 mortality

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Effects of a 20 megaton nuclear explosion

• 21 miles
• Shattered glass, flying debri
• 29 miles
• 3 burns over all exposed skin
• 40 miles
• Retinal burns blind all who witness explosion

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Effects of a 20 megaton nuclear explosion over
Boston

• Death toll
• 1,000,000 within minutes
• 1,800,000 survivors
• 1,100,000 fatally injured
• 500,000 with major injuries
• 200,000 without injuries

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Types of Injuries

• Burns
• Blindings
• Deafenings
• Collapsed lungs
• Fractures
• Shrapnel wounds

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Radiation Sickness

• Medium to high doses death within 1-7 days
• Low doses BM failure, infections, bleeding,
  sores, death

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Effects on health professionals

• 70 killed or fatally wounded
• 15 injured
• lt 1000 survive

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Effects on health care system

• Most major hospitals destroyed
• EMS system debilitated
• No X-ray machines, electricity, water,
  antibiotics or other meds, blood/plasma, bandages

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Effects on health care system

• 2000 burn unit beds in US (100 per major city)
  essentially destroyed
• No bone marrow transplant capability

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Effects on Health Care System

• 1500 patients/doctor
• 10 min/pt
• 4 hours sleep/noc
• 2 weeks to see all injured

31
Nuclear Terrorism

• Attack on nuclear power plant or other nuclear
  installation
• Dirty bomb
• Potential tens to hundreds of thousands of
  deaths, billions of dollars of damage, chaos
• Numerous radiation sources left over from Cold
  War in post-Soviet countries

32
Nuclear Terrorism

• Reports of weapons/numerous radiation sources
  missing from Soviet arsenal
• The Nth Country experiment (1964) 3 science
  post-docs with no nuclear know-how designed a
  working atom bomb

33
Chemical Weapons

• 428 BC Athenians and Spartans burned wax, pitch
  and sulfur
• Davinci arsenic and sulfur shells
• WW I
• Italians vs. Ethiopians
• Japanese vs. Chinese
• Germans vs. Allies
• chlorine gas
• 91,000 deaths and 1.3 million injuries

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Chemical Weapons

• Egypt vs. South Yemen (1963-7)
• Iran/Iraq War (1980s)
• Gulf War (versus Kurds, ? Others)
• Gulf War Syndrome (real per Congressionally-mandat
  ed scientific panel, 2008)
• 1995 Tokyo subway attack by Aum Shrinko cult
  using sarin
• 12 dead, 5000 injured or incapacitated

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Types of Chemical Weapons

• Nerve gasses / paralytics
• E.g., sarin, VX
• S/S paralysis (incl. resp. muscles), headache,
  dizziness, N/V
• Rx gas masks, pretreatment with
  pyridostigmine, decontamination, antidotes
  (atropine, pralidoxime, diazepam, tropicamide)

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Types of Chemical Weapons

• Blistering agents
• E.g., sulphur mustard
• S/S burns, blindness, pulmonary toxicity, BM
  suppression, N/V/D
• Rx decontamination, analgesia, pulmonary and eye
  care

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Types of Chemical Weapons

• Pulmonary toxicants
• E.g., chlorine, phosgene
• S/S pneumonitis, laryngeal spasm, pulmonary
  edema, ARDS
• Rx O2, bronchodilators, corticosteroids,
  ?ibuprofen, ?acetylcysteine

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Chemical Weapons

• 1972 Biological and Toxic Weapons Convention
  prohibits development, production, and
  stockpiling
• 1989 stockpiles
• US 36,000 tons
• Russia 270,000 tons (1/2 nerve gas)
• Current amounts unclear

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Other Chemical Weapons

• Tear gas, pepper spray
• Calmatives mind-altering or sleep-inducing
  weapons (benzo-, SSRI-, and anesthetic
  derivatives)
• Cramp-inducing agents

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Other Chemical Weapons

• Stink bombs (?Race specific?)
• Colored smoke as an obscurant
• Crowd control vs use in warfare
• US pilot amphetamine use

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Biological Weapons - History

• Ancient Greeks, Romans and Persians
• US Civil War (General Johnson at Vicksburg)
• 14th Century Tatars catapulting plague-infested
  corpses

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Biological Weapons - History

• Sir Jeffrey Amherst (French and Indian Wars -
  smallpox) You would do well to try to inoculate
  the Indians, by means of blankets, to extirpate
  this execrable race
• WW I Cholera, plague, glanders, anthrax

43
Biological Weapons WW II

• Unit 731, Manchuria, Shiro Ishii
• British Operation Vegetarian (anthrax cakes /
  Germany)
• US military personnel received typhoid, smallpox,
  yellow fever and tetanus vaccines

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Biological Weapons Post WWII

• Swerdlosk - anthrax
• Zimbabwe - anthrax

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Biological Weapons Today

• 17 countries possess ( Al Qaeda?)
• US role in supplying other nations
• e.g., 1985-1989 US companies sold to Iraq
• Bacillus anthracis, Clostridium botulinum,
  Histoplasma capsulatum, Brucella melitensis,
  Clostsridium perfringens, Clostridium tetani, and
  E. coli
• Despite evidence of use of chemical weapons
  against Kurds

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Biological Weapons Today

• 1972 Biological Weapons Protocol signed by 158
  nations
• Lacks adequate enforcement mechanisms
• US has rejected enforcement (wary of foreign
  inspectors discovering military secrets and/or
  trade secrets of biotechnology and pharmaceutical
  companies)

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Biological Weapons - Agents

• Anthrax Brucellosis Cholera
• Glanders Pneumonic plague
• Tularemia Q Fever Smallpox
• Venezuelan Equine Encephalitis
• Viral Hemorrhagic Fevers (e.g., Ebola)
• Botulism Staph enterotoxin B
• Ricin Mycxotoxins

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Biological Weapons of the Future

• Genetic weapons targeted at specific ethnic
  groups

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Smallpox

• DNA virus decimated native American populations
  eradicated by WHO vaccination campaign in 1972
• ?Only remaining viral stocks at CDCP and in
  Siberia?

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Smallpox

• Incubation period 7-17 days (avg. 12)
• Spread by droplet infection highly contagious
• Symptoms abrupt onset of F/HA/myalgias ? rash ?
  MSOF ? death

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Smallpox

• Rx isolation, post-exposure vaccination,
  supportive care, ?antivirals
• 30 fatality rate

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Anthrax

• Cutaneous, GI and Pulmonary forms
• Est. 50kg release over urban center of 5 million
  people would sicken 250K and kill 100K
• 100 kg release would have the same of
  casualties as a hydrogen bomb explosion

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Inhalational Anthrax

• Case fatality rate approx. 50
• Rx
• Post-exposure antibiotics (doxycycline,
  ciprofloxacin, penicillin)
• Supportive care
• Vaccine

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Other WMDs

• Small arms
• Land mines
• Cluster bombs

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Health Care System Preparadness for Weapons of
Mass Destruction

• ¾ of US ERs not fully prepared for treating mass
  casualties
• Only 12 of US hospitals have bioterrorism
  response measures developed and in place
• Congressional panel estimates gt 50 chance of
  terrorist act involving WMDs by 2013

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Health Care System Preparedness for Weapons of
Mass Destruction

• US public health / emergency care system already
  in disarray
• 80 of states facing budget cuts or holdbacks
• Medicaid over budget in 23 states
• Anti-immigrant laws dangerous

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Priorities and Mass Destructions

• Warning
• Progressive Rhetoric Ahead.

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Military Spending

• US ½ of discretionary tax dollars spent on the
  military
• US military budget represents 34 of total world
  military budget (1.035 trillion in 2004)
• 400 billion defense budget for 2003 (excluding
  costs of war in Iraq)
• Iraq War costs up to 2 trillion

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Military Spending

• 4.6 increase in spending on nuclear weapons
• 11.5 decrease in spending to prevent the spread
  of chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons
  (773 million)

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Arms Exports
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Arms Imports
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Missile Defense ShieldThe Militarization of Space

• Star Wars program proceeding, despite
• Astronomical cost est. 100 billion
• Strong opposition by scientific community
• Spectacular failures in 2/4 tests, despite highly
  structured conditions
• Abandonment of ABM Treaty by Bush administration

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Missile Defense ShieldThe Militarization of Space

• Shield or very porous umbrella
• Easily overwhelmed and fooled by inexpensive
  decoys
• No protection against internal accidents or
  terrorists bringing weapon onto US soil or dirty
  bomb
• Proposed use of moon for spy observatories and
  weapons

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Dwight Eisenhower

• The problem in defense spending is to figure out
  how far you should go without destroying from
  within that which you are trying to protect from
  without

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Social Injustices Abound

• 46 million Americans lack health insurance ?
  18,000 deaths per year
• 20-25 of US children live in poverty
• Worsening homelessness, public educational
  system, other social indicators
• 1.2 billion people have no access to clean
  drinking water-2 million child deaths/year

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Social Injustices

• Worldwide
• poverty increasing
• maldistribution of wealth
• corporatization
• global debt crisis

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Social Injustices

• Worldwide
• environmental destruction and global warming
• Air pollution kills 70,000/yr in US, gt500K/yr
  worldwide
• AIDS epidemic in sub-Saharan Africa
• 70,000 die of hunger every 2 days (i.e., one
  Hiroshima every 2 days)

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Health Costs of Militarization

• 3 hours of world arms spending annual WHO
  budget
• ½ day of world arms spending immunization for
  all the worlds children

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Health Costs of Militarization

• 3 weeks of world arms spending primary health
  care for all in poor countries, including safe
  drinking water and full immunizations
• Brain drain 1/2 of US research scientists work
  entirely on military R and D

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Dwight Eisenhower

• Every gun that is made, every rocket fired,
  signifies in the final sense a theft from those
  who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold
  and not clothed

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Dwight Eisenhower

• This world is not spending money alone. It is
  spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of
  its scientists, the hopes of its children. This
  is not a way of life at all, in any true sense.
  Under the cloud of threatening war, it is
  humanity hanging from a cross of iron.

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Martin Luther King

• A nation that continues year after year to
  spend more money on military defense than on
  programs of social uplift is approaching
  spiritual death.

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US Foreign Aid

• US ranks 21st in the world in foreign aid as a
  percentage of GDP (0.7, versus UN recommended
  0.15)
• Foreign Aid
• 1/3 military
• 1/3 economic
• 1/3 food and development
• US worlds largest arms exporter many weapons
  later used against us

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Current Problems

• Budget surplus ? budget deficit
• Iraq
• Afghanistan
• Others?
• War on Terror

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New US Nuclear Weapons PoliciesUnder GW Bush

• Nuclear Posture Review expands scope of use of
  nuclear weapons, including first-strike against
  non-nuclear states
• Withdrawal from ABM Treaty
• Boycotted Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty
  Conference
• Budgeted money to resume nuclear testing and
  development

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The US Rogue Nation

• History Native Americans, slavery, current
  disparities and injustices
• 5 of the worlds population responsible for 25
  of its energy consumption, 33 of its paper use,
  and 72 of its hazardous waste production
• Co-opting Nazi and Japanese WWII scientists

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The US Rogue Nation

• Minimum 277 troop deployments by the US in its
  225 year history
• Since the end of WWII, the US has bombed
• China, Korea, Indonesia, Cuba, Guatemala, Congo,
  Peru, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Nicaragua, El
  Salvador, Grenada, Libya, Panama, Afghanistan,
  Sudan, Yugoslavia, and Iraq
• Conservative estimate 8 million killed

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The US Rogue Nation

• In 2002, the US spent about 1,211 per US citizen
  on defense
• vs. 2.27 per citizen on international
  peacekeeping efforts
• The US maintains military bases in 69 sovereign
  nations around the world

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The US Rogue Nation

• Continued funding of the Western Hemisphere
  Institute for Security Cooperation
• Formerly the School of the Americas
• Over 60,000 graduates, including many of the
  worst human rights abusers in Latin America
  (e.g., Manuel Noriega, Omar Torrijos, and the
  assassins of Archbishop Oscar Romero)

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International Non-Cooperation/Isolationism

• Failure to sign or approve
• Kyoto Protocol on Climate Change
• Convention on the Prohibition of Anti-Personnel
  Land Mines
• Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty
• Convention on the Rights of the Child

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International Non-Cooperation/Isolationism

• Failure to sign or approve
• Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination
  Against Women
• Convention on Economic, Social and Cultural
  Rights
• Convention for the Suppression of Traffic in
  Persons

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The US Rogue Nation

• Death Penalty
• US executes more of its citizens than any other
  country
• US is the only country to execute both juveniles
  and the mentally ill
• Failure to follow World Court Decisions
• Oppose International Criminal Court
• Largest debtor to the UN (only 40 of dues paid)

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The role of the doctor in society

• World Health Organization
• The role of the physician in the preservation
  and promotion of peace is the most significant
  factor for the attainment of health for all.
• Physicians for Social Responsibility

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Contact Information

• Public Health and Social Justice Website
• http//www.phsj.org
• martindonohoe_at_phsj.org