Helen Caldicott on the Nuclear Industry

Helen Caldicott (born 1938) is an Australian physician, author, and anti-nuclear advocate who has founded several associations dedicated to opposing the use of depleted uranium munitions, nuclear weapons, nuclear weapons proliferation, war and military action in general. She hosts a weekly radio program, If You Love This Planet.

Born in Melbourne, Australia, Caldicott attended the Fintona Girls' School, and received her medical degree in 1961 from the University of Adelaide Medical School. In 1977 she joined the staff of the Children's Hospital Medical Center in Boston, and taught pediatrics at the Harvard Medical School from 1977 to 1978.

In 1980, following the Three Mile Island nuclear accident, she left her medical career in order to concentrate on calling the world's attention to what she refers to as the "insanity" of the nuclear arms race and the growing reliance on nuclear power.

In 1982, she was the subject of the controversial Oscar-winning National Film Board of Canada documentary on the dangers of nuclear weapons, entitled If You Love This Planet.

Her sixth book, The New Nuclear Danger: George W. Bushs Military Industrial Complex, was published in 2001. While touring with that book, she founded the Nuclear Policy Research Institute, headquartered in Washington, DC. NPRI seeks to facilitate an ongoing public education campaign in the mainstream media about what it perceives as the dangers of nuclear energy, including weapons and power programs and policies. It is led by both Caldicott and Executive Director Julie R. Enszer. NPRI has attempted to create a consensus to end all uses of nuclear energy and destroy the nuclear age by means of public education campaigns, establishing a presence in the mainstream media, and sponsoring high-profile symposia.

In May 2003, Caldicott gave a lecture entitled "The New Nuclear Threat" at the University of San Diego's Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace & Justice Distinguished Lecture Series.

A 2004 documentary film, 'Helen's War: portrait of a dissident,' provides a look into Dr. Caldicott's life through the eyes of her niece, filmmaker Anna Broinowski.

Caldicott currently splits her time between the United States and Australia and continues to lecture widely to promote her views on nuclear energy use, including weapons and power. She has been awarded 20 honorary doctoral degrees and was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by Nobel Laureate Linus Pauling. She was awarded the Lannan Foundation Prize for Cultural Freedom in 2003, and in 2006, the Peace Organisation of Australia presented her with the inaugural Australian Peace Prize "for her longstanding commitment to raising awareness about the medical and environmental hazards of the nuclear age". The Smithsonian Institution has named Caldicott as one of the most influential women of the 20th century.

Since July 14, 2008, Dr. Caldicott has hosted an hour-long, weekly radio program, "If You Love This Planet." The show was first aired and originated by Houston station KPFT and is now heard on dozens of U.S., Australian and Canadian stations.

A fully revised and updated edition of her 1992 book "If You Love This Planet" was published by W.W. Norton in September 2009.

Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station (TMI) is a civilian nuclear power plant located on Three Mile Island in the Susquehanna River, in Londonderry Township, Dauphin County, south of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, United States. It has two separate generators, known as TMI-1 and TMI-2. The plant is best known for having been the site of the worst civilian nuclear accident in United States history on March 29, 1979, when TMI-2 suffered a partial meltdown. According to the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the accident resulted in no deaths or injuries to plant workers or members of nearby communities, a contention which is disputed by some academics, journalists and local residents. The reactor core of TMI-2 has since been removed from the site, but the site has not been decommissioned yet.

Three Mile Island is so named because it is located 3 miles downriver from Middletown, Pennsylvania. The plant was originally built by General Public Utilities Corporation, later renamed GPU Incorporated. The plant was operated by Metropolitan Edison Company (Met-Ed), a subsidiary of the GPU Energy division. During 2001 GPU Inc. merged with FirstEnergy Corporation, through the selling of its outstanding common stock.

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[ho2cultcha]

I picked Dr. Caldecott up at the airport in Indianapolis and drove her to Purdue University where she met w/ medical and pre-medical students to form a chapter of Physicians for Social Responsibility. What a wonderful woman she is!

[52joeylee]

The song " Nuclear Madness" by Joseph Lee Hooker was inspired by the book with the same title written by Dr. Helen Caldicott. The song was first performed live in Washington D.C. at a anti-nuclear rally on May 6,1979 where Dr. Caldicott was a guest speaker."Nuclear Madness" is on the album"Hello World"by Joseph Lee Hooker released in spring 2011.It also is on You tube uploaded in March 2011.

[Aiden057]

Anyone know if a link or source for a complete version of this?

[sandustanBrasov]

• SandustanBrasov

My planetary brethren and you physicists, engineers and men of science let's awaken at reality, at knowledge, at wisdom and let's pass at the construction the thermonuclear controlled reactors, reactors with spherical chamber after Sun model; which can not be dangerous, not even for those which serve these installations.

[sandustanBrasov]

• SandustanBrasov

I had thinked a proposal of realisation to one universal vehicle, good on Earth but and in cosmos. The source of energy is a thermonuclear controlled reactor, and the traction is realized through a set of reactive electromagnetic motors. The realization of these, impose a revision and elucidation to some parts from the actual science, which is strangled of the theoretical physics with a series of metaphysical laws and principles.