Safety in Medicine:

Dr. Alice Stewart – Medical Practitioner – ridiculed, later vindicated

In the 1940’s, Dr. Alice Stewart was the youngest and one of a few women members of the Royal College of Physicians in the UK.  She investigated the high occurrences of cancers in children from well to do families.  At the time, disease was more related to poverty.  She published a paper in the authoritative The Lancet in which she linked the high occurrences of cancer in children to the practice of subjecting pregnant women to X-rays.  This revelation annoyed the medical profession that was feeling very proud of the new technology of X-ray.  The US Medical bodies, UK medical bodies, government regulators, promoters of nuclear science and the nuclear industry ganged up to launch a brutal attack against Dr. Stewart.  She was denied a major research grant in the UK.  It took 25 years for the medical profession to accept her research findings and abandon the practice of X-rays to pregnant mothers.  She suffered ridicule from colleagues and denial of funds for further research but saved the entire world from the negative side effects of X-raying pregnant mothers.  There was no possibility of anonymous whistle blowing at her time.