Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR)

Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR) is a public education and advocacy group founded in 1961 and dedicated to medical professionals' opposition to nuclear weapons. In the early 1960s, many Boston-area doctors shared their concerns over the threats posed by the nuclear arms race. They founded a small study group that met at the home of Dr. Bernard Lown, a Harvard cardiologist. The group largely comprised psychiatrists and community health specialists and was mostly academic. It soon became formally known as PSR, and the group's first significant activity was to prepare a series of articles for the New England Journal of Medicine, a nationally and internationally renowned medical journal. Despite the political conservatism of the journal'.s publisher-the Massachusetts Medical Society-and the novel nature of the enterprise, the papers were published as a symposium entitled "The Medical Consequences of Nuclear War" in May 1962. This was the first substantial body of research on the likely effects of a nuclear war between the superpowers and its potential biological, physical, and psychological impact.