Helen Caldicott on Plutonium

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.

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.

Citing confidential memos, Caldicott says that the Hershey Foods Corporation was concerned about radiation levels in milk used in their products because of the proximity of the Three Mile Island accident to Hershey's Pennsylvania factory. According to Caldicott, citing a March 30, 1979 study by the Pennsylvania State University, College of Engineering, radiation contaminants that fell on the Pennsylvania grass found its way into the milk of the local dairy cows. Caldicott noted this was contrary to the findings in the government official report released shortly after the Three Mile Island disaster. Caldicott disputes this report in her book, Nuclear Power is Not the Answer.

Also in 1980, she founded the Women's Action for Nuclear Disarmament (WAND) in the United States, which was later renamed Women's Action for New Directions. It is a group dedicated to reducing or redirecting government spending away from nuclear energy use towards what the group perceives as unmet social issues.

During her time in the United States from 1977 to 1986, Caldicott was involved with Physicians for Social Responsibility (founded originally in 1961), an organization of 23,000 doctors committed to educating others on what they claimed were the dangers of nuclear energy. She also worked abroad to establish similar groups that focused on education about what she said were risks of nuclear energy, nuclear weapons and nuclear war. One such international group (International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War) was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1985. She herself received the Humanist of the Year award from the American Humanist Association in 1982.

Caldicott's investigative writings had the distinction of being nominated and subsequently chosen as Project Censored's #2 story in 1990. Citing the research of Soviet scientists Valery Burdakov and Vyacheslav Fiin, Caldicott argued that NASA's Space Shuttle program was destroying the Earths ozone and that 300 total shuttle flights would be enough to "completely destroy the Earth's protective ozone shield," although there is no scientific evidence to back up this claim.

In 1995 Caldicott returned to the US where she lectured for the New School of Social Research on the Media, Global Politics, and the Environment. She also hosted a weekly radio show on WBAI (Pacifica) and became the Founding President of the STAR (Standing for Truth About Radiation) Foundation.

Her sixth book, The New Nuclear Danger: George W. Bush's 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.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Helen
• Caldicott
• Plutonium
• Amory
• Lovins
• Australia
• Belarus
• Bush
• administration
• CANDU
• reactors
• Chernobyl
• Disaster
• China
• Syndrome
• Davis-Besse
• Greenpeace
• half-life
• Harvey
• Wasserman
• Hurricane
• Katrina
• IAEA
• Idaho
• National
• Laboratory
• India
• Indian
• Point
• Iran
• isotopes
• Israel
• John
• Deutch
• cancer
• leukemia
• MAGNOX
• Manhattan
• Project
• North
• Korea
• energy
• Nuclear
• Waste
• weapons
• proliferation
• Pakistan
• uranium
• enrichment
• zirconium

[NWONEWSNOW]

She's totally right.

[SprayOClockNews]

she also recently [march 2011] gave a lecture in montreal canada to increase awareness, that canada produces wheat for life and uranium for death, we are in the DIS-INFORMATION AGE since most people are still soooo cluless about sooo many things! TOO BUSY TEXTING TO EVEN NOTICE THEIR SURROUNDINGS! WHAT A JOKE!

[SprayOClockNews]

@simontimon2 well, i wouldn't say cheap, TOO SMART yes. if you want to know what i know or feel is accurate, see KillerSpray -com AGENDA 21 made easy [alotta work went into researching that site]

[simontimon2]

@SprayOClockNews of course not I keep all my money in the form of physical gold, and so the subject of diet soda I rather drink tap water, I'm too cheap to buy that.

[SprayOClockNews]

@simontimon2 ya, u proly think the banks lend out peoples savings! lol! that's right up there with the earth being flat, i suggest u stay off the diet soda, wtf did you think the zero stands for on coke zero? it is the IQ of diet soda drinkers! ;-)

[simontimon2]

@SprayOClockNews Arguments like yours are thought up by those's who are clueless and think they know everthing.

PS just because your an actavis, doesn't mean your smarter than an engineer

[9cman]

Colloidal Silver is proven to heal Cancer Cells by transforming them into Stem Cells.

Why is it then not connon knowledge, u might ask ??

Because it cures all other deseases as well, - and can be made by anybody who has Destilled Water, 99,99% pure silver and an outdated mobile phone generater.

Pls. Google "Colloidal Silver" and try it, before commenting.

With Love and Compassion

[IExposeMormonism]

whoops, she raised this as a moral issue. She even referred to God. This is politically incorrect and will result in her being marginalized.

[faroutadventures]

@x8z3 Oh ya. And it smells so good.

[x8z3]

@faroutadventures

Meantime, it breathes the rarified Plutonium air of the failing Fukushima power plant, fresh from across the Pacific.

[ryanshaunkelly]

governments and media pretend to be clueless;

plutonium dust mixed into air, ground, and water