The Atom at Work

Radiation Senility. In a speech before the Senate Armed Services Subcommittee, Dr. John C. Bugher, chief of the Atomic Energy Commission's Biological and Medical Division, made a statement that chilled the Senators. "A possible delayed effect of radiation exposure," he said, ". . . is a statistical shortening of life expectancy." Such "radiation senility" has been demonstrated with animals. "This phenomenon does not result from any specific cause of death, but apparently from a general acceleration of the aging process. Whether this factor can be recognized in a human population is as yet unknown."

Post-Bomb Leukemia. Another delayed effect of radiation has already been recognized in humans. Dr. William C. Moloney of Tufts Medical School and Dr. Robert D. Lange report in Blood, The Journal of Hematology on leukemia (blood cancer) among Japanese atom-bomb survivors. Most people near the centers of explosion at Hiroshima and Nagasaki died of heat or blast. Some survived these effects, but got heavy doses of gamma rays and neutrons. In Hiroshima, 750 people who had been within 1,000 meters (3,300 ft.) recovered from their radiation sickness and remained apparently well for years. Then an unusual number of them showed symptoms of leukemia. So far, 14 of the 750 have developed the fatal disease. This is more than 600 times the normal incidence of leukemia in Japan.

Survivors farther from the explosion did not get leukemia so frequently, but even among those nearly two miles away the leukemia rate has been far above normal. Dr. Moloney expects other forms of cancer to appear later, and he suspects that the radioactive fallout of hydrogen bombs will have even greater cancer-producing effect. His guess is that repeated small exposures because of the fallout will cause more malignancies than the atom bomb's single big dose.

Sheltering Smoke. Speaking last week to the Charleston (W. Va.) chapter of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, Major General William M. Creasy of the Army Chemical Corps described a partial measure of atomic defense. One way to reduce casualties from nuclear explosions, he said, is to cover each threatened city with a blanket of dense, black smoke.

Of the bomb's three threats to human life (heat, blast and gamma rays), the heat radiation reaches farthest with full killing effect. Its rays, however, cannot penetrate opaque substances. The Chemical Corps has proved by experiments in Nevada that dense carbon smoke screens off most of the heat. Such smoke can be generated in enormous quantities by burning coal or oil improperly in industrial furnaces. So when the warning comes, General Creasy suggests, smoking chimneys should draw a black blanket over the target city. Gamma rays, of course, will pass through smoke as if it were not there.

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