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by nonradiation.org
Widely regarded as one
of the the most articulate and passionate advocates of citizen action to
remedy the nuclear and environmental and nuclear crises, Dr Helen
Caldicott has devoted the last 30 years to an international campaign to
educate the public about the medical hazards of the nuclear age, and the
necessary changes in human behavior to stop environmental destruction.
In 1971, Dr Caldicott played a
major role in Australia's opposition to French atmospheric nuclear testing
in the Pacific, and in 1975, worked with the Australian trade unions to
educate their members about the medical dangers of the nuclear fuel cycle,
with particular reference to uranium mining.
While living in the United States,
from 1977 to 1986, she founded the Physicians for Social Responsibility,
an organization of 23,000 doctors committed to educating their colleagues
about the dangers of nuclear power, nuclear weapons and nuclear war. On
trips abroad she helped start similar medical organizations in many other
countries. The international umbrella group (International Physicians for
the Prevention of Nuclear War) won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1985. She also
founded the Women's Action for Nuclear Disarmament (WAND) in the U.S. in
1980.
Returning to Australia in 1987, Dr
Caldicott ran for Federal Parliament as an independent. Defeating Charles
Blunt, leader of the National Party, through preferential voting she
ultimately lost the election by 600 votes out of 70,000 cast.
She has received many prizes and
awards for her work, including 19 honorary degrees, and was personally
nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by Linus Pauling--himself a Nobel
Laureate. She has written for numerous publications and has authored five
books, Nuclear Madness (1979, revised edition by W.W. Norton in 1994),
Missile Envy (1984, Bantam), If You Love This Planet: A Plan to Heal the
Earth (1992, W.W. Norton) A Desperate Passion: An Autobiography (1996,
W.W. Norton; published as A Passionate Life in Australia by Random House).
Her latest book published in
America in April 2002 (and May 2002 in Australia and New Zealand) is The
New Nuclear Danger: George Bush's Military Industrial Complex (The New
Press in the US; Scribe Publishing in Australia).
She also has been the subject of
several documentary films, including Eight Minutes to Midnight, nominated
for an Academy Award in 1982, and If You Love This Planet, which won the
Academy Award for best documentary in 1983.
Dr Caldicott was an instructor in
pediatrics at Harvard Medical School, specializing in cystic fibrosis, and
on the staff of the Children's Hospital Medical Center, Boston, Mass.,
until 1980 when she resigned to work full time on the prevention of
nuclear war. She founded the Cystic Fibrosis Clinic at the Adelaide
Children's Hospital in 1975.
She divides her time between
Australia and the United States where she is the president of The Nuclear
Policy Research Institute (www.nuclearpolicy.org) a 501C3 organization
based in California.
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