In May last year, I spoke at The Real Truth About Health conference in Orlando, Florida. At the conference, 28 leading health and environmental authors spoke individually and on panels and gave interviews, addressing different aspects of the question, “Are you being told the truth about health, nutrition, the food system and the environment?” All 80 …
It is now apparent from all reports that the weapon set off by North Korea yesterday was an atomic, not a hydrogen bomb. For many years North Korea has asked for a non -aggression treaty with the United States and a free trade agreement but the US has consistently refused to end the war with …
I begin my submission to the Nuclear Fuel Cycle Royal Commission by posting an article which I wrote for the Australian Medical Student Journal, which outlines in some detail the medical implications of the whole nuclear fuel chain. The impact of the nuclear crisis on global health Due to my personal concerns regarding the ignorance …
Submission to the Nuclear Fuel Cycle Royal Commission Read More »
An informed democracy will behave in a responsible fashion, says Dr Helen Caldicott, however as we sleepwalk towards embracing nuclear energy, most Australians are not aware of the dangers and have forgotten the history. THE Australian anti-nuclear movement started in Adelaide in 1971 when fallout from French atmospheric nuclear tests polluted Adelaide’s water supply. People were …
Australia sleepwalks towards a dangerous nuclear future Read More »
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, General Atomics, and the Tennessee Valley Authority — will not accept defeat. Their new strategy is to develop small modular reactors (SMRs), allegedly free …
There is an extraordinary push by certain individuals to extol the wonders of thorium-fueled nuclear reactors. In fact, so concerted is this push that some blame me for preventing the ongoing expansion of such technology. So here are the facts about thorium for those who are interested. The U.S. tried for 50 years to create …
By Helen Caldicott, Volume 4, Issue 2 2014, Australian Medical Student Journal Due to my personal concerns regarding the ignorance of the world’s media and politicians about radiation biology after the dreadful accident at Fukushima in Japan, I organized a 2 day symposium at the NY Academy of Medicine on March 11 and 12, 2013, …
The impact of the nuclear crisis on global health Read More »
The Queensland and federal governments’ mining push is a catastrophe in the making, write Helen Caldicott and Reese Halter. The Age, February 4, 2014 The rampant destruction of the Great Barrier Reef, given the green light last Friday by the federal government, epitomises the values of our modern world. “Economic development” and “jobs” reign supreme while …
Great Barrier Reef on brink of devastation in relentless quest for coal Read More »
To the Editor, New York Times: Re “Taming Radiation Fears” (Op-Ed, Oct. 22): David Ropeik, a specialist on risk perception and risk communication, plays down the mass of scientific and medical literature that amply demonstrates that ionizing radiation is a potent carcinogen and that no dose is low enough not to induce cancer. Large areas …
Einstein –“The splitting of the atom changed everything save man’s mode of thinking, thus we drift towards unparalleled catastrophe.” This subject has perplexed me ever since I was a young girl and read “On The Beach” when I lived in Melbourne. It became obvious to me that unless men could restrain themselves and not fight and …
As the escape of radiation at Fukushima seems virtually unstoppable, there are still steps that governments all over the world should take to prevent worst case consequences. One of them would be canceling the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo. Scientific estimates predict that the radioactive plume travelling east across the Pacific will likely hit the shores …
Endless Fukushima catastrophe: 2020 Olympics under contamination threat Read More »
After four-and-half-years and 197 programs, If You Love This Planet ended with the broadcast of its last new episode on the week ending December 28, 2012. I believe we have made a valuable contribution to the public debate on any number of important issues over the years. I have thoroughly enjoyed interviewing the most interesting …
By Helen Caldicott, The StarPhoenix November 9, 2012 I write to reply to the allegations made about me in John Gormley’s column, More private liquor stores, less Caldicott (SP, Nov. 2). First, it is important for me to stress that the aboriginal people in Northern Saskatchewan are being exploited by the uranium and nuclear power …
Helen Caldicott, Reader Supported News, 28 August 2012 When I visited Cuba in 1979, I was struck by the number of roadside billboards that declared “Our children are our national treasure.” This resonated with me as a pediatrician, and of course it is true. But as Akio Matsumura said in his article, our children are …
Helen Caldicott, Sydney Morning Herald, 25 February 2012 The devastating spectre of war looms again. Just as the US manufactured “weapons of mass destruction” in Iraq, so certain political factions in the US and Israel are intent on creating international panic by claiming Iran is on the verge of becoming a nuclear power. This is …
Helen Caldicott, New York Times, 2 Dec 2011 The nuclear power industry has been resurrected over the past decade by a lobbying campaign that has left many people believing it to be a clean, green, emission-free alternative to fossil fuels. These beliefs pose an extraordinary threat to global public health and encourage a major financial …
Rasmussen Report October 1975, WASH-1400, updated by Union of Concerned Scientists The report states that in the “worst possible case” (an assumed 10 million people at risk) 3,300 people would die of severe radiation damage within several days; 10,000 to 100,000 people would develop acute radiation sickness within two to six weeks of initial exposure. …
The Awful Magnitude of Destruction from a Nuclear Meltdown Read More »
Huge quantities of radioactive elements, more than anyone has been able or willing to measure, have been continuously released into the air and water since the multiple meltdowns at the Fukushima Daiichi Complex in Japan on and around March 11, 2011. This accident is enormous in its medical implications. It will induce an epidemic of …
Internal Radioactive Emitters – Invisible, Tasteless, and Odorless Read More »
Six weeks ago, when I first heard about the reactor damage at the Fukushima Daiichi plant in Japan, I knew the prognosis: If any of the containment vessels or fuel pools exploded, it would mean millions of new cases of cancer in the Northern Hemisphere. Many advocates of nuclear power would deny this. During the …
TWENTY-FIVE years after Chernobyl, many billions of dollars are at stake if the Fukushima reactor meltdowns cause the so-called “atomic renaissance” to halt or even slow down. This is evident from the nuclear industry’s vociferous attacks on its critics. We see this especially in Australia, where the industry is conducting a whatever-it-takes propaganda campaign to …
Nuclear apologists play shoot the messenger on radiation Read More »
Soon after the Fukushima accident last month, I stated publicly that a nuclear event of this size and catastrophic potential could present a medical problemof very large dimensions. Events have proven this observation to be true despite the nuclear industry’s campaign about the “minimal” health effects of so-called low-level radiation. That billions of its dollars …
How nuclear apologists mislead the world over radiation Read More »
As I write this on 25 March from Ottawa, two weeks since the earthquake and tsunami and the calamity that has befallen the Fukushima Nuclear Plant No 1, the situation has grown increasingly grave.Despite the heroic efforts of the “Nuclear Samurai” – the TEPCO employees who have selflessly and heroically fought to stabilize the reactors …
“I have become Death, the destroyer of worlds”. Robert Oppenheimer, quoting the Baghavad Gita, on witnessing the first atomic bomb test, 1945 As I write this – on the afternoon of March 16 in the United States – the situation at the Fukushima Nuclear Plant No. 1 is, tragically, looking increasingly grim. Radiation levels are …