BWH cardiologist rallies younger doctors to confront the threat of nuclear war
After more than three decades away from the cause, Brigham and Women’s Hospital cardiologist James Muller, MD, is back to warn a younger generation of physicians about the threat and potential consequences of nuclear war, the Boston Globe reports.
Years ago, at the height of the Cold War, Muller co-founded the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War. The effort, which involved a collaboration between American and Russian doctors, succeeded in warning hundreds of millions about the danger of nuclear weapons.
Now 76, Muller is worried the threat of nuclear war has dropped off younger generations’ radar. He’s working overtime to ensure his greener colleagues understand the weight of his concerns, especially in an era of such political unrest.
“Cardiovascular events we work to prevent—sudden cardiac death, myocardial infarction, rupture of an aneurysm, stent thrombosis, stroke—are low-probability, high-consequence negative events,” Muller and colleagues wrote in a Circulation paper published last month. “These catastrophic occurrences threaten our patients in much the same way that nuclear war threatens humanity.”
Right now, aside from spreading the word, Muller is encouraging his peers to question certain realities, like the unchecked authority of a president to launch a nuclear attack and proposals for a trillion-dollar “enhanced” weapons program.
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After graduating from Indiana University-Bloomington with a bachelor’s in journalism, Anicka joined TriMed’s Chicago team in 2017 covering cardiology. Close to her heart is long-form journalism, Pilot G-2 pens, dark chocolate and her dog Harper Lee.