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An Open Letter to:

Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee of India

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif of Pakistan

Bernard Lown, MD; Eugene I. Chazov, MD; William H. Foege, MD; Dr Saeed Ul-Majeed
Dr R. Jayachandra Reddy

JAMA. 1998;280:467-468.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

We send this appeal based on long experience in struggling for peace and nuclear sanity in order to sustain life and promote health.

A nuclear conflict between India and Pakistan would be an unmitigated catastrophe, not only for the people of India and Pakistan but for all humankind. No society can survive even a modest nuclear attack. No civil defense preparation can mitigate the dreadful consequences. An overwhelmed health care system could not cope with the massive numbers of casualties seeking help. The fatally injured would die in the solitude of their unrelieved agony.

In Hiroshima, a primitive nuclear bomb—less than the magnitude you have recently tested—killed, in a split second, more than 100,000 people and maimed and injured a like number. A majority of the health workers were among the victims . . . [Full Text of this Article]

President of Pakistan Medical Association

President of Indian Medical Association

From the Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, Mass (Dr Lown); Cardiology Research Center, Moscow, Russia (Dr Chazov); Emory University, Atlanta, Ga (Dr Foege); Pakistan Medical Association, Peshawar (Dr Ul-Majeed); and Indian Medical Association, New Delhi (Dr Reddy). Drs Lown and Chazov were recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1985 on behalf of the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, which they cofounded. Dr Foege is the executive director for the Task Force for Child Survival and Development, Atlanta.

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