- 280 pages
- Includes 2001 Addendum on Hormesis
|This is the bible of public Nuclear Preparedness, both easy to grasp and understand the threats and chocked full of practical and easy to implement solutions to minimize radiation exposure to As Low As Reasonably Achievable. Originally published by Oak Ridge National Laboratory, a Facility of the U.S. Department of Energy.
Chapter 13, Page 109:
For the vast majority of Americans who would receive radiation doses from a massive attack, the help of doctors, antibiotics, blood transfusions, etc., would not be of life-or-death importance. Very few of those receiving acute doses (received within 24 hours) of less than 100 R would become sick, even briefly. All of those exposed to acute doses between 100 R and 200 R should recover from radiation effects. However, under post-attack conditions of multiple stresses and privations, some who receive acute radiation doses of 100 R to 200 R may die of infectious diseases because of their reduced resistance. If total doses this size or even several times larger are received over a period of a few months in small doses of around 6 R per day, no incapacitating symptoms should result. The human body usually can repair almost all radiation damage if the daily doses are not too large.
The majority of those with acute doses of less than about 350 R will recover without medical treatment. Almost all of those receiving acute doses of over 600 R would die within a few weeks, even if they were to receive treatment in a typical hospital during peacetime.
The most effective way to reduce losses of health and life from radiation sickness is to prevent excessive exposure to radiation. Adequate shelter and essential life-support items are the best means of saving lives in a nuclear war.
"Readers will be astonished at the wide variety of the problems which have excited his enquiry and the cunning simplicity of some of his solutions. There is no other book which offers so rounded a view of this large subject nor any on a smaller scale which one could recommend with so few reservations." - Journal of the Institute of Civil Defense, London