Robert P. Gale

Robert Peter Gale (* 1945 in New York ) is an American doctor and internationally recognized specialist in radiation sickness . The award-winning specialist in leukemia and other bone marrow diseases coordinated medical care and investigations into the consequences of the Chernobyl disaster in 1986 with the approval of the Soviet government . He teaches in Los Angeles and London and is involved in cancer drug development.

education

Robert Gale studied biology and chemistry at Hobart College and graduated from the State University of New York with a degree in medicine in 1966 . In 1976 he earned a Ph.D. in microbiology and immunology from the University of California at Los Angeles. His postdoctoral work was funded by the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Leukemia Society of America , where he was a Bogart Fellow and Scholar .

activities

From 1973 to 1993, Gale worked at the UCLA School of Medicine , focusing on the subject of molecular biology . He developed a program for bone marrow donation and expanded it to a leading position in international medicine. He also worked with John Liebeskind on psychological issues.

A few days after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster , Robert P. Gale, Richard E. Champlin, Paul Terasaki and Yair Reisner offered their help. In the spring of 1986, after mediation by Armand Hammer in Moscow hospital number 6, in cooperation with Soviet hematologists, bone marrow transplants were carried out on radiation victims from Chernobyl to treat the blood-damaging radiation sickness, albeit with only moderate healing success.

In addition to his involvement in coordinating medical aid in Chernobyl, he was involved in the Goiânia accident in Brazil in 1987 , and in 1988 on behalf of the American government in an earthquake in Armenia . In 1999 he treated victims of the Tōkaimura nuclear accident on behalf of the Japanese government .

Gale has written over 800 publications and more than 20 books. Interviews and newspaper articles have been published in the New York Times , Los Angeles Times , Washington Post , USA Today , Der Spiegel and the Wall Street Journal . He was involved in several film scripts, including Chernobyl: The Final Warning and Fat Man and Little Boy and City of Joy with Patrick Swayze .

Awards

• Presidential Award, New York Academy of Sciences
• Scientist of Distinction Award, Weizmann Institute of Science
• Distinguished Alumni Award from Hobart College and Intra-Science Research Foundation Award

He has received honorary degrees from Albany Medical College , LHD from Hobart College, and DPS from MacMurray College . The Emmy was awarded for his contributions to a 60-minute contribution on Chernobyl.

For his humanitarian activities he has received the Olender Peace Prize , the City of Los Angeles Humanitarian Award and the Myasthenia Gravis Foundation Humanitarian Award .

Attitude to the risks of nuclear energy

Gale believes the health risks posed by the Fukushima nuclear disaster are relatively low. He justified this, among other things, with the fact that the prognoses made by him in 1986 after the Chernobyl disaster on the number of cancer cases and disabilities in newborns turned out to be too high in 1988. In addition, in contrast to Ukraine, Japan has already succeeded in preventing the consumption of contaminated milk and dairy products and distributing iodine tablets, thereby avoiding thyroid cancer in children and adolescents, which is widespread in Ukraine . Compared to the psychological consequences, the consequences of the radiation of the Chernobyl disaster on human health were far less drastic.

Gale was appointed as an advisor to the Japanese government in 2011. In 2011 and 1986, in interviews and name articles in German-language newspapers , he criticized what he considered to be the excessive fear of Germans about nuclear energy.

He compares their risks with the risks of using fossil fuels and states, for example, that 10,000 people would die annually in coal mining. Radioactivity is also released into the environment during the production of solar power plants. He says about the Fukushima accidents:

“The most serious long-term consequences of a nuclear accident are usually not medical, but political, economic and psychological. Therefore, the German reaction to Fukushima should not only be determined by emotions, but should be considerate and thoughtful. "

Personal

Gale is married with six children and lives in Los Angeles , California. He does a lot of sport and is, among other things, an active marathon runner. He is one of the supporters of the United Jewish Appeal , an umbrella organization of Jewish philanthropic organizations in the USA.

Web links

• Robert Peter Gale: Chernobyl - the final warning. The medicine after the reactor disaster (I) . In: Der Spiegel. No. 16, 1988, April 18, 1988, pp. 146-159.
• Robert Peter Gale: Chernobyl - the final warning. Medicine after the reactor disaster (II) . In: Der Spiegel. No. 17, 1988, April 25, 1988, pp. 144-156.
• Robert Peter Gale: Chernobyl - the final warning. Medicine after the reactor disaster (III) . In: Der Spiegel. No. 18, 1988 of May 2, 1988, pp. 140-152.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Alexander E. Baranov, Robert Gale, Angelina Guskowa a. a .: Bone marrow transplantation following the Chernobyl nuclear accident. In: New England Journal of Medicine. Volume 321, 1989, pp. 205-213.
2. ↑ Axel W. Bauer , Anthony D. Ho: Chernobyl 1986 - Disaster relief as a means of relaxation policy. How bone marrow transplants by American hematologists contributed to the rapprochement between East and West. In: Medical historical messages. Journal for the history of science and specialist prose research. Volume 34, 2015 (2016), pp. 195-209.
3. ↑ ^{a b} Robert Gale: The threshold that puts everyone in danger . The American doctor Robert Gale takes stock of his Chernobyl mission in Moscow. Der Spiegel April 18, 1988
4. ^ John J. O'Connor: Review / Television; 2 Docudramas Deal With Big Issues . In: The New York Times . April 23, 1991. Retrieved December 4, 2010.
5. ↑ ^{a b c d} Robert Peter Gale: The real danger. In: Der Spiegel. No. 14, (April 4) 2011.
6. ↑ Peter Gale: Cancer researcher criticizes German atomic fears. Die Kleine Zeitung, April 6, 2011, accessed on April 7, 2011 . 
7. ↑ Self-reported information on Gale's homepage ( Memento of the original from May 5, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.