Family Weekly I February 19, 1961
AS you read these words, the morning may be
bright and sunny, the landscape as seen from
your window peaceful, and the sounds around you
the trill of a bird, the bark of a dog, the laughter
of children part of the everyday scene.
Yet at this moment, you and your family are men
aced by the most treacherous and implacable foe
mankind has ever faced. No other enemy in history
no aggressor nation or disease has ever, posed
such a peril to us as does the invisible menace of radia
tion now being introduced to this planet by medical,
military, and industrial sources.
In my lifetime as a physician,
I have never known any major
health hazard to be so sur
rounded by confusion, apathy,
misrepresentation, and danger
ous procrastination as this one.
In my opinion, the world has
refused to face a scourge which
can maim and destroy far larger
numbers of people than any
disease or nuclear war.
Because we can neither see,
feel, taste, nor smell radiation;
because we unknowingly may
eat, drink, or breathe it;
because we may be years older
before the irreversible effects
it causes within our bodies
harm us or even long-since dead before these harm
ful genetic effects are passed along to our children
because of this we have not sensed the degree of
menace radiation presents. But before any more time
passes, the public's attention must be focused on this
grave danger.
Paradoxically, radiation is not new to man. Like
all forms of life on this planet, the human species has
evolved in an atmosphere which continually bom
bards its body with invisible rays. This natural radia
tion comes from the air, rocks, soil and even from
the cosmic rays which constantly rain down on earth
from outer space. Even our own bodies normally
contain radioactive materials which have been pres
ent since the beginning of time.
But in 1 895 mankind for the first time began to
add to this natural radiation with the invention of
the X-ray machine. Since then, radiation's menace
to humans has steadily increased, and increased enor
mously with the recent advent of the nuclear age with
its atom bombs and nuclear reactors.
Man-made radiation from liuclear tests now per
vades the atmosphere and soil of our planet. As the
uses of various products of nuclear fission inevitably
increase in the years to come, a much heavier load of
radioactive material will be added to our environment.
Some of the radioactive sub
stances will emit dangerous
radiation for a few hours;
others will go on spraying sur
rounding areas with radiation
for hundreds, even thousands,
of years.
How does radiation affect
heredity?
High energy rays are capable
of penetrating human tissues
and bones, whether they come
from X-ray machines, radio
active materials in rocks and
soil, or cosmic rays from outer
space.
The prime target for radia
tion damage is the microscop
ically sized human cell. In the
laboratory, small doses of radiation rays can be seen
to cause visible breaks in the chromosomes of human
cells grown in test tubes. Such changes cause muta
tions. And once a mutation has occurred, unless it is
fatal to the cell, it will become a part of the hereditary
material that the cell passes on to its successors.
Recently, a Colorado biochemist, Dr. T. T. Puck,
who developed a method for growing colonies of
human cells in the laboratory, traced the effects of
radiation on a particular human cell and its succes
sors. When a cell is injured by radiation, he found,
it continues to perform its proper functions until the
time comes for it to reproduce itself. But then, at the
first division or the next one, the cell is no longer able
tO divide normally. (Continued on page 9)
ILLUSTRATION BY JAMES KEARNS
Family Weekly. February 19, mi 7