1933

Gil Beebe, epidemiologist and statistician extraordinary, characterized as of peak importance among those scientists studying atomic bomb effects, was prominently quoted in an August 6th Washington Post article, which on the anniversary of their dropping, sought to provide an authoritative report on the 1945 Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings.

"The majority of people in the combined populations of Hiroshima and Nagasaki escaped physically unscathed," said Gil, stressing that of the 300,000 who lived through the bombings into 1946, "only about 1,500 have died from radiation-caused cancers in 50 years. The original fears of other long-term effects such as accelerated aging and genetic damage among the survivors and their children have been proven almost entirely unfounded. It's not at all what most people think." Gil, who spoke on some of his statistical findings on radiation at our 60th Reunion, believes that the bombs were "a terrible watershed we crossed in history" and never should have been dropped, but deprecates the willingness of anti-nuclear activists and Japanese civil authorities to radically inflate statistics on casualties. "It doesn't serve truth very well to inflate any of these figures," he says.

We move from an expert on radiation to medical experts of different sorts and pirate the following information from Waxy Wright's column in the summer issue of Dartmouth Medicine.

Phil Marden has retired from the U. of Pennsylvania Medical School faculty after a service of 58 years.

Ralph Keyes, out in euphoniously named Walla Walla, has found that a previously diagnosed Parkinson's was due to improper medication and has got rid of the medication and the Parkinson's.

Bill Teahan's second son is a timpanist in the Copenhagen (Denmark) National Symphony Orchestra, an interesting counterpart to his other son, the district judge whom we met with Bill at our 60th.

Vinny Young gave up his surgical practice 15 years ago and went into real estate, but has now sold off his holdings and is looking for other fields to conquer.

8043 West Lane Keys NW, Washington, DC 20007-3057