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In the U.S.A. and other advanced countries, tribal peoples, together with other minorities, receive protection, their land-rights are respected, and reparations are being made for past violations. In the Third World there may be protective laws but, in practice, these are commonly ignored because it is profitable to do so. As a result, there is nothing to stop the present world-wide destruction of the environment in undeveloped regions— particularly of tropical forest—and the accompanying sociocide.At present rates of destruction, pratically all existing natural tropical forests will have been cleared in 15–20 years' time, and catastrophic consequences are predicted. It is important to start using substitutes for raw materials emanating from forests—right now, while there still remain large forests and wild areas which can be saved. To aid this process it is proposed that a worldwide organization of timber producers should be formed along the lines of OPEC—to raise timber prices to true, i.e. replacement, costs—and that similar organizations should be formed for other raw materials. Such organizations could reduce environmental destruction without loss of income. Simultaneous with this, existing laws to protect tribal land-rights must be more vigorously enforced than hitherto, and new laws and institutions must be created where necessary to help slow the pace of destruction of tribal environments and societies.

The first of a series of meetings, sponsored by Physicians for Social Responsibility, took place in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in February 1980, to consider the Medical Consequences of Nuclear Weapons and Nuclear War. It was followed by others elsewhere and led to the horrifying convictions that (1) it is highly unlikely that any nuclear war would be ‘limited’, and (2) no effective medical response can be conceived to deal with the human damage which would result from a nuclear attack. Consequently an organization entitled International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War has been established to hold further meetings and promote general enlightenment towards avoiding widespread—even global—human carnage and environmental destruction which would accompany a nuclear war involving even a small fraction of the weapons that now exist.The atomic bomb which was exploded over Hiroshima in August 1945 is estimated to have killed 75,000 of that city's population of 245,000 and to have destroyed two-thirds of the 90,000 buildings within the city limits. It had an explosive power equivalent to 20,000 tons of TNT, whereas many of the thermonuclear devices now deployed at the ready are some 50 times more powerful than it although still far less destructive than the most devastating contemporary weapons. Consequently the world's leaders must be brought to their senses and these horrific weapons dismantled to avoid what could be ‘the last epidemic’.The magnitude of the problem can be gauged from the fact that at present more than 50,000 nuclear warheads are reported to be deployed and ready to launch—most of them being sufficient in destructive power to dwarf the bomb that was used against Hiroshima. Sufficient nuclear devices exist outside the United States to destroy totally every major American city. Six nations are now acknowledged possessors of nuclear weapons, and there are almost certainly others to increase the degree of instability. This situation is not so much ‘unthinkable’ as insufficiently realized or even thought about—hence the failure to reject nuclear war as a ‘viable option’ in the conduct of world affairs. Medically, any treatment programmes would be virtually useless and the costs quite staggering, so prevention becomes imperative.