ABSTRACT
The massive postwar expansion of hospitals, health insurance, and research funding fueled its boom. Provincial cancer programs, entrepreneurial ambitions, and Cold War politics led to a race between two Canadian provinces. Intent on winning the Cold War nuclear arms race, it seems, the United States lost the medical nuclear arms race. Reports from other centers concurred with Fletcher in finding (only) incremental improvements under certain conditions using cobalt-60 and megavoltage devices on selected cancers. Cobalt teletherapy did advance the success of the radiology specialty and played a major role in elevating its therapeutic subspecialty to full specialty status. Economic and professional factors drove the cobalt-60 boom more than science did. Calling cobalt-60 less technologically demanding than megavoltage devices, some radiotherapists deemed cobalt suitable only for the "unsophisticated environment" of community hospitals.
