SUMMARY
The Second Interdisciplinary Conference on Selected Effects of
a General] War was held at Princeton,
New Jersey from 4-7 October
1967, under the auspices of the New York Academy of Sciences Interdisciplinary Communications Program, with the support of tae Defense Atomic Support Agency. The first of this series of conferences
was held {rom 18-21 January 1967 and dealt chiefly with the effects
of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
This second conference was concerned mainly with the effects of
fallout or other release of radioactive materials from subsequent
tests or accidents involving nuclear weapons, The specific effects
discussed extensively included the effects of the 1954 H-bamb te3t
in the Pacific ocean which resulted in radioactive fallout contamination of Marshall Island natives and of the 'apanese fishermen on the
vessel Fukuryu Maru (Lucky Dragon); the ecological effects of bomb
tests inthe Pacific ocean test regions, and the effects of the ‘Spanish
incident, '' which involved the accidental dropping of four nuclear weapons, without detonation but with release of radioactive material (plutonium) onto Spanish soil as a result of accidental destruction of an
airborne bomber.
Representatives of many disciplines engaged in vigorous and freewheeling discuss.on and debate of all aspects of these incidents. The
disciplines represented included, among others, physics, weapons
technology, military science, ecrology, epidermology, radiation biology, toxicology, pathology, psychiatry, genetics, other biologic and
medical specialities, and pertinent administrative and cultural specialties,
In addition to discussion of the physical characteristics and extent
of the radioactive contamination,
the radiation doses, the monitoring
and decontamination procedures,
the biclogical,
medical,
psychologi-
cal and sociological effects of the radioactive contamination upon the
people and locales immediately involved, the discussions extended to
broader and farther reaching psychosocial aspects, i.e., to the chains