Citation

Tokuda Y, Barnett PB. J. Gen. Fam. Med. 2019; 20(6): e220.

Affiliation

Lake Tahoe Regional Hospitalists University of Nevada School of Medicine Reno NV USA.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2019, Japan Primary Care Association)

DOI

10.1002/jgf2.277

PMID

31788398

PMCID

PMC6875528

Abstract

Just weeks after withdrawing from the Intermediate‐Range Nuclear Forces Treaty on August 2, 2019, a medium‐range cruise missile was tested in one of the countries that possess a huge number of nuclear weapons. Meanwhile, weeks before the missile test, in an influential medical journal, a physician member of the Physician for Social Responsibility (PSR) reminded us the important role of physicians for advising the public and politicians to abolish nuclear weapons.1 Physicians know that medical errors cannot be completely eliminated in health care, just as nuclear weapon error: “Never event never stops”.

We can add such a near‐miss event that almost led to the launch of nuclear missiles from a US military base in Okinawa Island, which is located between Japan and Taiwan. In 1945 during World War II, the US military force occupied Okinawa in the battle against Japan and constructed military bases on the island. In this small island whose land size is only 20 times of Manhattan, numerous nuclear weapons were kept (about 1300 at its peak deployment) to be used for possible nuclear war until Okinawa was returned to sovereignty of Japan in 1972.

On June 19, 1959, a surface‐to‐air missile with a nuclear warhead at the US base in Naha, the capital city of Okinawa, was accidentally fired because of a maintenance error and it submerged in the ocean without nuclear explosion. The missile contained a warhead similar ...

Language: en