In August 2023 the editors of 11 leading medical and health journals called for the elimination of nuclear weapons.1 Other anthropogenic threats to humanity include the climate emergency, biological and chemical weapons of mass destruction, hazardous uses of gene editing, and uncontrolled artificial intelligence. Existential risk studies (ERS) and its corollary, existential ethics, are emerging forums for interdisciplinary dialogues about these risks to human survival.
Although International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) has focused on certain anthropogenic threats to humanity since the 1980s, physicians are conspicuously absent from the more recent, comprehensive dialogues. Thoughtful papers on the risk of human extinction published more than a decade ago drew little notice from anyone.23 Major treatises of ERS and existential ethics do not include medicine in their indices.45 These observations may reflect domination by disciplines such as philosophy, economics, and law. How might physicians contribute to the effort to postpone human extinction?
William Osler, probably the best known physician in the English speaking world …