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HELEN CALDICOTT
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Raised in Australia, Helen Caldicott trained as a pediatrician and specialized in treating children with cystic fibrosis. She became an activist in the early 1970s when she learned of France's violation of the International Test Ban Treaty causing fallout to occur in Australia. Resigning from the faculty of Harvard Medical School, she helped to found and was the first president of the Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR) and the Women's Action for Nuclear Disarmament (WAND), two organizations at the forefront of the nuclear-freeze movement. Caldicott has traveled widely, speaking in support of anti-nuclear efforts, environmental responsibility, and women's rights.
"Everybody should read these three books." Click on a Title to Order
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If You Love This Planet: A Plan to Heal the Earth (W.W. Norton, 1992; 231 pages). "In sheer passion of expression and focused purpose, If You Love this Planet is a pure call to action, manifesting Caldicott's evident faith in the power of human love and activism' Moreover, Caldicott provides the important service of announcing forthrightly the link between natural disaster on a planetary scale and socioeconomic injustice' on a similar scale." (The Workbook)
A Desperate Passion: An Autobiography (W.W. Norton, 1996; 366 pages). "'a candid and often painfully revealing self-portrait' Caldicott is brutally frank in recounting the toll her activism took on her marriage, her children's lives, and her personal happiness." (Library Journal)
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| At the time of the book's publication of Nuclear Madness: What You Can Do (Autumn Press, 1978; Revised edition, W.W. Norton, 1994), author Helen Caldicott was an Australian pediatrician who devoted most of her professional life to working with children born with cystic fibrosis. She wrote the book as a doctor, mother, and world citizen. The book is a polemic against all things nuclear, and it became a primer on the medical hazards of nuclear fission. She frequently spoke out against nuclear power both as an energy source and for weapons. Caldicott has had a widespread following throughout the world, but especially in Australia and the United States. The book argued that no part of the human race was free from the devastation of radiation. It had leaked into our food cycle and water supply, and nuclear waste could not be safely stored. Critics charged that she was a fanatic and that most radioactivity came from natural sources and medical x-rays. Caldicott believed that citizens could no longer entrust their lives to politicians, bureaucrats, "experts," or scientific specialists, because their objectivity was compromised. Her vision for a new world entailed constructing massive solar and wind electricity farms that would free society of its dependence on fossil and nuclear energy. The book's first edition was written before Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, events that only served to extend Caldicott's authority and credibility. The revised edition added a lot of new material that strengthened her argument. Caldicott appealed to the medical and scientific professions and to the general public to raise their voice in protest against nuclear proliferation. Based on her own experience, she reminded readers that "one voice was all it took to raise a warning call." — Byron Anderson |
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