My Six Mentors, Helen Caldicott, MD by Mary Olson, Gender and Radiation Impact Project, 1 January 2021 Helen Caldicott deserves a much greater place in our histories of the Cold War and ending the USA / USSR arms race than she generally gets. This is, perhaps, because she is powerful and a woman. A pediatrician, who in […]
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The Lessons We Haven’t Learned
by Helen Caldicott, The Progressive, August 3, 2020 My birthday is August 7, sandwiched between the anniversary dates for the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (on August 6 and August 9, 1945, respectively). I was six years old when the first bomb fell. My course in life was predetermined. On September 2, 1945, when the […]
The Existential Threats to Life on the Planet
Discussing the existential threats to life on the planet with Regis Tremblay: nuclear war, nuclear power, and climate change. Also, her thoughts on what the Coronavirus and global lockdowns mean.
Trump Administration On Way To Destroying All Arms Control Agreements – Peace Activist
Fahad Shabbir, Urdu Point News, 28 May 2020 WASHINGTON (UrduPoint News / Sputnik – 28th May, 2020) The Trump administration is on its way to destroying all arms control agreements and its scrapping of the Open Skies Treaty last week was the latest step on that road, global peace activist Dr. Helen Caldicott told Sputnik. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced […]
Trump World Health Funding Cut ‘Makes No Sense’ – Global Peace Activist
WASHINGTON (UrduPoint News / Sputnik – 18th April, 2020) President Donald Trump‘s decision to deprive the World Health Organization (WHO) of its $500 million a year funding from the United States makes no sense regardless of the body’s failure to issue adequate warnings over the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, global peace activist Dr. Helen Caldicott told Sputnik. “Well, just because they made a mistake doesn’t mean that […]
The Dangers of Nuclear Power in Australia
By Helen Caldicott, Independent Australia, 16 February 2020 Long-time anti-nuclear campaigner and writer Dr Helen Caldicott believes the risks of nuclear power outweigh the benefits. AS AUSTRALIA grapples with the notion of introducing nuclear power as an energy source, it is imperative that people understand the intricacies of these new technologies including small modular reactors (SMR) and thorium reactors. There are […]
For A Green Future
19 January 2020 Dr. Helen Caldicott and Karlin Itchoak are our guests on this special episode of For A Green Future. First Karlin talks about the Wilderness Society’s efforts to save the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge from oil drilling. Then Dr. Helen Caldicott tells us about the fires in Australia, the nuclear freeze movement, the […]
Anti-nuclear campaigner Helen Caldicott alarmed at talk of nuclear power in Australia
Damon Cronshaw, Newcastle Herald, 12 January 2020 Australians should be terrified of the prospect of a nuclear power plant being built in their region, says Helen Caldicott, the world’s foremost anti-nuclear campaigner. “There’s always the risk of a meltdown like Chernobyl, Fukushima or Three Mile Island,” said Dr Caldicott, who once lived at Matcham on […]
The Nuclear Threat Combined with Global Warming
Joan Cerio, host of Earth Energy Forecast, welcomes Dr. Helen Caldicott who shares with us her knowledge of nuclear weapons, nuclear disasters such as Fukushima, and global warming are threatening the existence of our planet. Dr. Caldicott has devoted the last 42 years to an international campaign to educate the public about the medical hazards […]
Our nuclear arms obsession is a countdown to extinction
By Helen Caldicott, Independent Australia, 14 December 2019 I WRITE THIS PIECE as a physician expertly trained to make accurate diagnoses to either cure the patient or to alleviate their symptoms. I, therefore, approach the viability of life on Earth from a similar and honest perspective. Hence, for some, this may be an extremely provocative article but […]
2019 Visionary Leaders Awards
Physicians for Social Responsibility is delighted to host the Visionary Leaders Awards Reception, on Thursday, November 7th, 2019 in Washington, DC. The Visionary Leaders Awards, now in its fourth year, recognizes individuals and/or organizations for their exemplary efforts in advancing nuclear weapons abolition and/or addressing environmental risks to human health, including the catastrophic consequences caused by climate […]
An Interview with Dr. Helen Caldicott, 2019 Lifetime Achievement Award Recipient
Physicians for Social Responsibility, 19 Sep 2019 This year at the 2019 PSR Visionary Leaders Awards, we are honoring outstanding contributions to the advancement of nuclear weapons abolition and addressing environmental hazards to health, including the climate crisis. Dr. Helen Caldicott, a past PSR president and highly influential advocate who played a pivotal role in PSR’s […]
Bolton’s Fall Revives Hopes To Save New START
UrduPoint News / Sputnik – 17th September, 2019 President Donald Trump‘s decision to fire National Security Adviser John Bolton revives hopes for improved Russia-US ties and for saving the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), anti-nuclear war activist Helen Caldicott told Sputnik. Last week, Trump via Twitter fired Bolton, his third national security adviser in less than three years, due to disagreements […]
Small modular reactors — same nuclear disasters
Helen Caldicott, Independent Australia, 9 September 2019 The Morrison Government has opened the door to the notion of nuclear power as peddled by the nuclear sociopaths. Now that the “nuclear renaissance” seems dead and buried following the Fukushima catastrophe (one-sixth of the world’s nuclear reactors were closed after the accident), the corporations invested in making nuclear plants and […]
New nuclear power proposal needs public debate
Helen Caldicott, Independent Australia, 4 September 2019 The prospect of thorium being introduced into Australia’s energy arrangements should be subjected to significant scrutiny, writes Helen Caldicott. AS AUSTRALIA is grappling with the notion of introducing nuclear power into the country, it seems imperative the general public understand the intricacies of these technologies so they can make informed […]
How doctors convinced the world the planet was worth fighting for
James Dunk, The Conversation, 26 August 2019 Last week, one of the world’s leading medical journals declared the medical community must act now to limit the health effects of climate change. In a stark editorial, readers of the New England Journal of Medicine were reminded that hospitals, even airconditioned and sterilised, are not protected from “the environmental […]
Nuclear debate
Paul Barry, Mediawatch, 24 June 2019 (transcript) A pro-nuclear power push from conservative media voices plays down the cost, while Andrew Bolt criticises the Chernobyl mini-series. BORIS SHCHERBINA: I’m pleased to report that the situation in Chernobyl is stable. In terms of radiation, I’m told it is the equivalent of a chest x-ray. VALERY LEGASOV: […]
Fukushima, the ‘nuclear renaissance’ and the Morrison Government
By Helen Caldicott, Indepedent Australia, 25 June 2019 Now that the “nuclear renaissance” is dead following the Fukushima catastrophe, when one-sixth of the world’s nuclear reactors closed, the nuclear corporations – Toshiba, Nu-Scale, Babcock and Wilcox, GE Hitachi, Cameco, General Atomics and the Tennessee Valley Authority – will not accept defeat, nor will the ill-informed Morrison Government. […]
What’s more chilling: watching Chernobyl or cogitating the cost of going nuclear?
The sudden push by the Murdoch media and Coalition right-wingers to overturn Australia’s nuclear power ban ignores the chilling economic cost — huge public subsidies, storing radioactive waste for thousands of years, the heavy costs of decommissioning and, potentially, radiation-related health costs. Veteran nuclear writer Noel Wauchope reports on the popular TV series, Chernobyl, and […]
Bad Energy
Independent Australia (IA) is thrilled to present Dr Helen Caldicott — Australian physician and famed anti-nuclear campaigner. In 2012, IA was the first to report the Fukushima nuclear meltdown and has continued to alert the public to the perils of the nuclear industry. With the re-elected Coalition intent on revisiting nuclear power, Dr Caldicott will […]
It’s time to speak up for higher teacher salaries
By Harvey S. Gold, Inside NoVa, May 18, 2019 It seems to me…it is time to speak up. As a teacher, I have not used this column to promote higher teacher salaries because I felt that would be self-serving. But, last week, I felt I must speak out after Sen. Tim Kaine visited Stafford to […]
Berry activist slams PM as ‘our worst immigration minister ever’
By Agron Latifi, Illawarra Mercury, 13 May 2019 Anti-nuclear activist Dr Helen Caldicott once gave the then US president Ronald Reagan a piece of her mind during a meeting in the White House. Last Saturday Dr Caldicott took aim at Australian political leaders’ “inhumane treatment” of refugees during a Refugee Action Collective Illawarra event in […]
The fallout from nuclear nations
Fred Pearce’s book Fallout is a fascinating insight into a few of the disastrous episodes which took place during the hasty and ill-informed projects of the nuclear age, Dr Helen Caldicott says. Guest Dr Helen Caldicott Paediatrician; President, Helen Caldicott Foundation Presenter Robyn Williams Producer James Bullen Go to https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/ockhamsrazor/the-nuclear-nation-fallout/11041808, where you can lsiten […]
Put on your pearls and pummel ‘em!
By Linda Pentz Gunter, Beyond Nuclear International, 14 April 2019 Dr. Helen Caldicott: the anti-nuclear movement’s most fearless and indefatigable matriarch I have nothing against Birkenstock sandals. Well, not much anyway. Nor tie-dye really. Nor, do I think, does Dr. Helen Caldicott. But there was a time — and maybe there still is — when […]
How Do You Justify a $750 Billion Budget?
By William J. Astore, Antiwar.com, posted on April 09, 2019 I grew up on a steady diet of threat inflation. Before I was born, bomber and missile “gaps” had been falsely touted as showing the Soviet Union was ahead of the U.S. in developing nuclear-capable weaponry (the reverse was true). But those lies, which vastly […]
Fukushima: “An Ongoing Global Radiological Catastrophe”. “A Huge Coverup”.
The eight year anniversary of the triple meltdowns at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear facility passed mostly without comment in mainstream media circles. In spite of ongoing radiological contamination that will continue to spread and threaten human health for lifetimes to come, other stories dominate the international news cycle. The climate change conundrum, serious though it […]
The Thinking Woman review: Julienne van Loon on the forces that shape us
By Jo Case, Sydney Morning Herald, 5 April 2019 The Thinking Woman Julienne van Loon NewSouth, $34.99 The Thinking Woman, the first work of non-fiction by acclaimed novelist Julienne van Loon (whose career began with a Vogel win for her first novel, Road Story, in 2004) is a knotty, charismatic exploration of the intersection between […]
Fukushima at Eight: Ongoing Cover-Up of the Nuclear Hazards in Japan and Abroad
By Michael Welch, Dr. Helen Caldicott, and Arnie Gundersen, Global Research, 17 March 2019 “The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking and we thus drift toward unparalleled catastrophe.” – Albert Einstein The eight year old Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster marks a critical turning point in human history. As […]
Woman in 90s still works for peace through activism
by Eric E. Harrison, Northwest Arkansas Democrat Gazette, 3 March 2019 Jean Gordon has been actively advocating for peace for more than four decades. “At least as far back as the ’70s, with the Arkansas Peace Center,” she says. “I was real involved in that.” Her involvement included a project called “Pulaski Priorities,” in which […]
In My Own Words
By Helen Caldicott, NAPF, 1 February 2019 What got you started on the path to being a nuclear weapons abolitionist? It began back when I was in my teens and read Neville Shute’s novel, On the Beach. It was about a nuclear holocaust that was set in Melbourne. At the end of the book, it […]
Some European Leaders Want to Prevent US From Killing INF Treaty – Peace Activist
Some European allies want to make last ditch efforts to prevent the arms race that will escalate if the US government exits the Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, Helen Caldicott, founder of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning Physicians for Social Responsibility told Sputnik. Russian President Vladimir Putin and German Chancellor Angela Merkel in a phone conversation […]
CIA Ditched Truth Drugs for Direct Torture of Prisoners After 9/11 – Analysts
The CIA appeared to have relied more on outright methods of torture or so-called “enhanced interrogation” techniques rather than using truth drugs after the September 11 terror attacks, University of Illinois Professor of International Law Francis Boyle said. “After September 11, the CIA decided to engage in outright methods of torture in violation of the International Convention against Torture,” Boyle […]
Thinking the Unthinkable
B.B. Singer, 26 Aug 2018, Niagara Gazette I recall in the early ‘80s when Jonathan Schell’s book “The Fate of the Earth” came out, long after “On the Beach” had cinematically addressed the same grisly subject of a nuclear holocaust in an era of bomb shelters and such. And I remember (from the ‘80s) Schell […]
Rogue Regenesys: Dr Helen Caldicott
On 23 August 2018, Rogue Regensys host Andrew Mount interviewed Dr Helen Caldicott. Andrew Mount, your host for Rogue Regenesys, examines the assumptions, limitations and failures of the current economic paradigm, aiming to highlight poignant alternatives and proposing real solutions. In an era of spiralling debt-crises and an uncertain ecological future, we are […]
US Nukes: Our Biggest Challenge
By Maud Easter, timesunion on July 20, 2018 In recent years, our fear about nuclear weapons has focused on whether new countries will join the club – on Obama’s successful efforts to prevent Iran from going nuclear (unfortunately now being undermined by Trump) and on Trump’s more helpful opening dialog with North Korea on getting rid of […]
World’s largest book about peace on display
The Big Book: Pages for Peace exhibit, featuring the world’s largest book about peace, opened July 11 at the Mariposa Museum in Peterborough. The exhibit will run through Dec. 31. The Big Book exhibit has a big goal: to share a profound message of hope and peace and engage young people, teachers, and visitors of […]
Is space for wonder or for war?
By Linda Pentz Gunter, Beyond Nuclear International, 20 June 2018 “What country is that?” asked Congressman Elijah Cummings on Tuesday, outrage choking his voice with emotion. Cummings, a Congressman from Maryland, could have been asking his question about any number of policies. In this case it was about the internment of children at the US border. […]
The Malfeasance of the US Military. Fallible and Negligent Men Armed to the Teeth with Missiles and Nuclear Bombs
By Dr. Helen Caldicott, Global Research, 8 June 2018 In 2015, ninety-two American missile officers were suspended because they had been cheating, taking drugs, or sleeping in the missile silos. These men are employed to guard and to operate 150 nuclear missiles at F.E. Warren Air Force Base in Wyoming which constitutes one-third of the […]
Straight talk from down-under
By Dan Drollette Jr, The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, 26 April 2018 During the darkest days of World War II, US Army general Joseph Stilwell earned the nickname “Vinegar Joe” for his brilliant, blunt, bracing, leadership style. Stilwell’s tough, honest assessment of a disastrous military campaign in Asia captured the imagination of the American public, and […]
US Arms Exports Expansion Result of Military Complex Pressure – Peace Activist
The Trump administration’s easier new rules for high tech weapons sales directly to foreign countries is a victory for giant US defense contractors to increase their profits, international peace activist Dr. Helen Caldicott told Sputnik on Friday. “Relaxation of restrictions and laws to inhibit the sale of drones and other weapons on an international scale is clearly a result […]
The Fight for Nuclear Deterrence Goes Local
By Alastair Boone & Sarah Holder, Citylab, 26 March 2018 Some cities and states are taking their own initiative to protect the world from a U.S. trigger finger. And they’re mostly led by women. Dropping an atomic bomb doesn’t happen as fast as it does in the movies. There’s no room with a red, shiny […]
The Continuing Relevance of “On the Beach”
“It frightened the hell out of me. I’m still frightened.” These words mark the reaction of a young Australian named Helen Caldicott to a story of the aftermath of mistaken nuclear war, in which those who never even took sides were faced with the slow advance of deadly nuclear radiation on their shores. On the Beach, […]
Anti-Nuclear Movement Founder Backs Cancer Crisis Clean-Up at US Base in Azores
WASHINGTON (Sputnik) – The cancer epidemic sweeping Terceira Island in the Azores, home to the US Air Base at Lajes, is a health crisis that requires an immediate environmental cleanup, Dr. Helen Caldicott, founder of a Nobel Peace Prize anti-nuclear movement told Sputnik. “The situation is a severe public health problem and all necessary facilities […]
Doomsday Clock ticking but prediction remains difficult
By Tom Switzer, Sydney Morning Herald, 30 January 2018 For seven decades, the Chicago-based Bulletin of Atomic Scientists group has kept a symbolic device called the Doomsday Clock. Its purpose is to warn humankind about the prospects of apocalypse. At the onset of the Cold War, in 1947, the clock was set at seven minutes […]
Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg on Trump, press freedom and nuclear secrets on RN Breakfast
Daniel Ellsberg, the man described as the most famous whistleblower of the 20th century talks about Spielberg’s new film The Post, press freedom, Donald Trump, and why he didn’t leak thousands of top-secret nuclear war documents. Listen to the interview with Radio National’s Fran Kelly at http://radio.abc.net.au/programitem/pgjGBPMbPV?play=true.
SA’s medical marvel who cheated death, defiant to the end
Roy Eccleston, The Advertiser, January 19, 2018 WHEN Vilma Taylor’s seven-month-old baby Brad was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis in 1964, the specialist assured her he’d be dead before long. “They said when he was born that five years of age would be his limit,” Vilma, now 86, says. “The specialist said it was a waste of […]
A Hiroshima Native’s View: ‘More Missiles Will Not Save Us’
By Seiji Yamada, Honolulu Civil Beat, January 16, 2018 At 8:07 on Saturday morning, Hawaii residents woke up to an emergency alert on their cellphones: “BALLISTIC MISSILE THREAT INBOUND TO HAWAII. SEEK IMMEDIATE SHELTER. THIS IS NOT A DRILL.” Until a second message called it a false alarm 38 minutes later, the people of Hawaii contemplated […]
Analyst: Lowballing Anti-Daesh Civilian Death Toll Likely to Fuel Hatred for US
Last week the Defense Department claimed that only 89 civilians had been accidentally killed in US air strikes against the Daesh terrorist group. However, the New York Times reported on Friday that the US air strikes against Daesh had killed 31 times as many civilians as the US military claimed. WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — The US military’s […]
Are We Creeping Toward A Nuclear Disaster?
The prospect of nuclear war. How serious is it? This hour, Australian anti-nuclear activist and writer Dr. Helen Caldicott shares her answer to that question. We also check in with experts from the Cato Institute and UConn. And we want to hear from you. North Korea, the U.S., Russia, China — how do you interpret the recent stream […]
Are We ‘Sleepwalking to Armageddon’ With Nuclear Weapons?
Dr. Helen Caldicott joins Detroit Today with Stephen Henderson to talk about her work opposing nuclear weapons. Nobel Peace Prize laureates — such as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Mother Theresa, and Nelson Mandela — are people who have been recognized for their exceptional efforts to end violence and oppression around the globe. This year, the prize goes to the International Campaign […]