Nuclear and Radiation Safety Issues
Dr. Helen Caldicott's Reply
I asked Dr. Helen Caldicott if she wanted to respond to the critical
letters about her Los Angeles Times article. Her response is given below.
I have commented on her response at this
this link and Dr.
Michael Baker has discussed her comments here.
Dear Robert Holloway,
Do you really want me to reply to the letters on your web page and
are you prepared to publish my letter in full? I ask these questions
because in the past I have been lied to by members of the nuclear
industry and most recently in the last few days by members of the
DOE at Brookhaven National Lab.
Should I defend myself against attack by members of the nuclear
industry from Los Alamos where new and better nuclear bombs
are currently being designed for use in third world countries now
that the Cold War is over? Why is this evil thinking and action
countenanced by you people when such weapons would invoke
the incineration and vapourisation of thousands, or hundreds of
thousands of innocent human beings?(1)
Should I defend myself against attack by the current President of
the Health Physics Society when the father and much lauded dean
of health physics Karl Z Morgan recently said "It is with much
reluctance and regret that I now must recognise that the US
profession of health physics has become essentially a labor union
for the nuclear industry - not a profession of scientists dedicated
to protect the worker and members of the public from radiation
injury?"(2)
Should I defend myself when in the 1970s 3 uranium diffusion
plants used 6700 megawatts of coal produced electricity per
year- the equivalent of almost 7 large nuclear reactors to enrich
uranium for this country - all done at tax payers expense. As you
also know, these enrichment plants are the single largest point
source of CFC114 gas to the environment, a material that is
both a potent global warmer and also an effective destroyer
of the ozone layer. Is there therefore any doubt to this day that
uranium enrichment, which remains hidden from public view
and debate adds, enormously to global warming?
Should I defend myself when a surfeit of new literature shows
that low doses of radiation, are 6 to 8 times more dangerous
than originally estimated?(3, 4, 5, 6)
Should I defend myself when I have written an important and
accessible book for the public and my profession on the medical
effects of radiation, with particular reference to internal
emitters,and the nuclear fuel cycle? Much of the this material
I gleaned from the Journal of Health Physics.(7)
Should I defend myself when it is now becoming apparent that
the incidence of cancer is increasing, and almost certainly one of
the etiological factors is fallout from the atmospheric tests
combined with the long latent period of carcinogenesis. Should
I defend myself when the National Cancer Institute sat for years
on the data estimating that up to 75,000 people have been or will
be condemned to developing thyroid tumors from iodine 131
fallout from these tests?
Should I defend myself when it is obvious that radio- iodine was
only one of the fallout isotopes, yet none of you have had the
integrity to examine the medical implications of others, including
strontium 90, cesium 137, plutonium and other transuranics?
Should I defend myself when you people know better than anyone
else that the radioactivity of certain nuclides lasts for eternities,
that the problem of nuclear waste has not and probably will never
satisfactorily be solved, and that isotopes concentrate by orders
of magnitude in the food chain, a fact that was well-researched by
health physicists? As you are well aware, these radioactive materials
will greatly increase the incidence of genetic diseases and
malignancies over time.
Should I defend myself when you know as well as I that infants and
children are ten to twenty times more radiosensitive than adults?
With all the data now at hand, what do you people think you are
doing defending the nuclear weapons and power industry which is
obsolete and medically contraindicated. Have you forgotten what
Einstein once said "The splitting of the atom changed everything
save mans mode of thinking, thus we drift towards unparalleled
catastrophe"?
Yours In Truth
Helen Caldicott MBBS, FRACP, Diplomate
American College of Pediatricians, Fellow
American Thoracic Society.
Founding President Emeritus Physicians
for Social Responsibility
1. William Arkin,"What’s New", Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Nov/Dec
1997
2. Karl Z Morgan,"Health Physics: Its Development, Successes, Failures,
and Eccentricities", American Journal of Industrial Medicine 22:125-133
(1992)
3. Hal Morgenstern et al,"Epidemiological Study to Determine Possible
Adverse Effects to Rocketdyne/Atomics International Workers from Exposure
to Ionizing Radiation" Final Report to the Public Health Institute
Berkeley, Cal, Subcontract No.324A-8701-S0163
4. Rob Edwards,"Radiation Roulette" New Scientist, 11Oct, 1997
5. Lynne M Wiley et al, "Impaired Cell Proliferation in Mice That
Persists Across at Least Two Generations after Paternal Irradiation"
Radiation Research Society, 1997
6. Hans Ellegren et al "Fitness Loss and Germline Mutations in Barn
Swallows Breeding in Chernobyl", Nature, Vol389, Oct 1997
7. Helen Caldicott, "Nuclear Madness" WW Norton, 1994
