War and Public Health. 2nd edition. BS Levy and VW Sidel (eds).

Abstract

This is not a book to be read cosily by the fire. Rather it should be absorbed standing on both feet, in small digestible chunks, preferably over several months. Readers in the United States, and particularly supporters of George W Bush, are advised to don a hair-shirt before embarking on the harrowing journey this book will take them on.In their introduction, Levy and Sidel set out three roles for public health professionals on the health effects of war and on factors that may cause war—advocacy, surveillance and documentation. War limits human rights; and the basic principles of prevention apply (primarily to avert war; second, to minimize the health and environmental consequences of actual wars and finally to ameliorate the sequelae of war). War and Public Health then catalogues the dire human cost of wars. Part 2 deals with the short and longer term consequences of war (epidemiological, human rights, environmental and mental health—‘men whose minds the dead have ravaged’). Part 3 chillingly charts types of weapons from conventional through biological to nuclear, and Part 4 the vicissitudes of vulnerable populations (children, women and displaced persons) and the new face of torture of detainees. ‘Rape and pillage’ as spoils of war demoralize an enemy in the 21st century as through history. There is an important role for (international) military forces in making logistically safe the camps for refugees.