August 2023 - Downwind of the Atomic State

Silent Spring and the Reckless Abandon of the Atomic Industrial Complex

Leave a Comment / Health Effects of Radiation Exposure / JRice

In September of 1962, Silent Spring arrived on bookshelves. It was an instant hit. Rachel Carson (1907-1964) did not simply describe the unintended consequences of the widespread use of pesticides, and DDT in particular, but linked to public concern over open-air atomic testing. Throughout the 1950s the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) detonated dozens of […]

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Uncovering an Atomic Plague: Radiation Effects at Hiroshima and Beyond

Denial has often been the default mode of the atomic state. But there have always been individuals willing to push back against the self-serving narrative fed to the public. The U.S. Army and the War Department went to extraordinary lengths to suppress images of death and illness at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, preferring to highlight