CISAC
Stanford University
Encina Hall, C205-10
Stanford, Ca 94305-6165

hlabrams@stanford.edu
(650) 723-9625 (voice)

Expertise
health effects of nuclear weapons; presidential disablility; biological effects of low-level radiation

Herbert L. Abrams is a professor of radiology, emeritus, at the Stanford School of Medicine and a Faculty Member at CISAC. He has written numerous papers on human reliability in the nuclear forces and the effects of ionizing radiation and of nuclear weapons. His articles have appeared in the New England Journal of Medicine, The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, The Sciences, the Journal of the American Medical Association, Current Research in Peace and Violence, the Political Science Quarterly, Presidential Studies Quarterly, Political Psychology, Science and Global Security, and five books. His concern with proliferation and fuel for nuclear weapons was expressed in a study of Security Issues in the Handling and Disposition of Fissile Materials (1994).

His present focus is on presidential disability and its potential impact on decision making. His book, The President Has Been Shot: Disability, Confusion and the 25th Amendment (New York: W.W. Norton and Company) was published in 1992 and has been updated and republished in paperback (1994) by Stanford University Press. He is also the author of many articles on the problems of accidental or inadvertent nuclear war, including: "Disability in Leaders, Cognition and Crisis Decision-making" (1990); "Strategic Defense and Accidental Nuclear War" (1992); and "The Dimensions of Human Instability and Human Error in the Nuclear Forces" (1993).

Another area of interest has been the effects of ionizing radiation and of nuclear weapons: "Medical Problems of Survivors of Nuclear War"(1983); "Medical Resource Need and Availability After Nuclear War" (1984); "The Fallout from Chernobyl" (1986); and "Nuclear Radiation in Warfare" (1989). These and many other articles have appeared in the New England Journal of Medicine, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, The Sciences, the Journal of the American Medical Association, Current Research in Peace and Violence, the Political Science Quarterly, Presidential Studies Quarterly, Political Psychology, Science and Global Security, and five books. His concern with proliferation and fuel for nuclear weapons was expressed in a study of "Security Issues in the Handling and Disposition of Fissile Materials" (1994).

A member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Science, he was also founding Vice-President of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, recipient of the 1985 Nobel Peace Prize. He has served on the National Board of Directors of Physicians for Social Responsibility for twenty years, and was also its National Co-Chairman during the 1980s.