Practising Global Preventive Medicine: <BR>Helen Caldicott, M. D.

Practising Global Preventive Medicine

Interview by Joan Sherman

Dr. Helen Caldicott is best known for her explicit and forthright description of the medical and ecological consequences of nuclear war in her book Nuclear Madness and the award-winning film If You Love This Planet. In her second book, Missile Envy, she further explores the dynamics of the arms race.

Dr. Caldicott was in Canada in 1988 for the Canadian Peace Pledge Tour which she describes in this interview. She also explains the importance of Canada becoming nuclear weapons free, the political and medical implications of uranium mining in Saskatchewan, and women in politics.

Dr. Caldicott describes herself as practising global preventive medicine. She is concerned that the military policies and the arms trade have produced massive starvation, disease, and ecological disasters such as the destruction of the ozone layer, pollution of the air and water, deforestation, and salinisation and erosion of the soil. She anticipates writing a book from the global perspective, tying in how nuclear weapons are really a support system for the transnationals to do what they want with impunity, to rape and plunder natural resources, and exploit the cheap labour of the world.

Dr. Caldicott spoke from her office in Sydney, Australia.

Aurora: You are a mother, a pediatrician, an Australian, and an internationally known peace activist. How did you become involved in the peace movement?

Caldicott: When I was about fourteen I lived in Melbourne and I read On the Beach by Nevil Shute, which initiated my big concern about the threat of nuclear war. At seventeen I went to university and started medicine, where I learned about genetics, radiation, and mutation. I saw genetic malformations, chromosomal breakage, and cancer. It was 1956, Russia and America were testing bombs in the atmosphere and a high fallout in the Northern Hemisphere, particularly in milk, was being found. Linus Pauling and other doctors predicted children drinking that milk could later develop leukemia, bone cancer, or other cancers, and I linked the two very clearly. I was always attracted to articles in the press about nuclear issues.

From 1966 to 1969 we lived in the United States, which was a radicalizing experience. It was the time that Bobby Kennedy was shot and Martin Luther King was killed, the Vietnam war was on, Nixon was elected, the ABM Treaty (anti-ballistic missile) was being pushed, and the civil rights movement was full speed ahead. I was radicalized and learned how to use democracy.

Then, I came back to Australia and in 1971 found out that France was exploding bombs in the atmosphere in the Pacific Ocean. As a result we experienced quite a high fallout in Adelaide. I understood what that meant: isotopes were being concentrated in the food chain, most specifically in human breast milk. So I wrote a letter to a newspaper with those medical facts. Then I was asked to speak on television, and that was the beginning. I was on television quite a lot because the French tested a lot of bombs and I was asked to comment. Australians rose up and demanded that the government stop this French testing, France was taken to the international court along with New Zealand and testing stopped.

In 1975 I found our country wanted to export uranium. I didn’t know anything about nuclear power so I read John Gofman’s book Poisoned Power: The Case Against Nuclear Power Before and After Three Mile Island and got a terrible shock. I’ve never read anything more dangerous in the literature of medicine than the risks from nuclear power and nuclear waste to future generations and, indeed, to this generation. It is much more dangerous than fallout from testing.

I conducted a campaign in Australia by speaking to major unions and from that campaign came the unions’ resolution to not export uranium. The Labour Party policy was to not export uranium, and to cancel all existing contracts if they got into government. Subsequently that agreement has been violated by the Hawke government. We are exporting a lot of uranium, and I am incensed.

Aurora: You recently spent seven weeks in Canada on a cross-country speaking tour for the Canadian Peace Pledge. Could you talk about the Canadian Peace Pledge?

Caldicott: Yes. The Canadian Peace Alliance is a coalition of over 400 peace groups in Canada. They, in a very sophisticated way, organized a national tour for me where I spoke in fourteen cities and travelled from the East to the West Coast, up to Yellowknife and all the cities in between, backwards and forwards across your country. They also organized the peace pledge campaign whereby people, after they heard me speak, signed a pledge that they would vote only for candidates supporting a nuclear-free Canada. And people gave an enormous amount of money. We collected over $100,000.

The goal of the campaign was twofold. It was to educate Canadians about the risk of nuclear war and about how Canada is participating in first-strike nuclear war plans with U.S., and how Canada is just a puppet of the U.S. in this area, and to talk about the nuclear submarines Canada plans to build. They are redundant and dangerous and could initiate a global nuclear holocaust with the Soviets. The second goal was to organize people to educate their friends and relatives and sign them up to the peace pledge campaign so that this year, with a national election, people could vote for a nuclear-free government.

Aurora: Did you have an opportunity to speak with any Canadian politicians?

Caldicott: Yes. I met Ed Broadbent, who impressed me enormously. I think he would be a wonderful Prime Minister for you, in the tradition of Lester Pearson. I also met Pierre Trudeau, who is an old friend of mine. It was nice to meet him, but he was clearly retired.

Aurora: Did you meet any of the members of the present Conservative government?

Caldicott: No, I did not. We tried to make appointments with Turner, who claimed to be out of town at the time I was there, with Mulroney, and your foreign minister, Joe Clark. They refused to meet with me.

Aurora: Are you reaching a wider audience, say a working-class or poverty-line audience?

Caldicott: Yes. I received a lot of national press, particularly on television, and those people watch television. Many Canadian labour unions supported my tour and came to the meetings.

Aurora: Are members of the labour movement concerned about losing their jobs?

Caldicott: My experience with the labour movement, particularly in Australia, is that they are concerned about losing their jobs, but once they hear the medical implications of mining, they are extraordinarily responsive to moral and medical arguments. They will not work in industries which are threatening to life on the planet once they have a deep and sound knowledge and understanding of the issue.

Aurora: Saskatchewan has the world’s richest uranium mines and exports to France, the United States, South Korea, Japan, and Sweden. It is predicted that, by the end of the decade, Saskatchewan will produce 20 per cent of the western world’s uranium.

Caldicott: I think it is morally reprehensible that you have found an extremely rich deposit, and it is going to be dug up as fast as possible. The legacy you leave from the nuclear waste from your uranium will threaten life on earth for the rest of time and degrade the positive process of evolution to produce mutant species all over the planet. I just can’t understand why Canada would involve itself in such a wicked, immoral industry.

Pierre Trudeau initiated an illegal international uranium cartel, which artificially raised prices of uranium in 1972, and that continues to this day. I think that the fraud and corruption in the uranium industry in your country makes the Mafia look like Boy Scouts.

The other thing is that your government subsidizes Third World countries like Pakistan to build nuclear reactors by lending them billions of dollars and never recouping the money. It is never repaid. They also lend money to countries to buy the uranium. In other words, you don’t make money out of uranium; you lose money. Your taxpayers are subsidizing the uranium industry for what reason? What are the dynamics behind this? I think it is the moral obligation of Canadian citizens to investigate this most corrupt industry and stop it, stop it immediately. I think it is incumbent upon all of you to read Nuclear Madness, which is not just about nuclear war, it is about the whole nuclear fuel cycle and about genetic degradation of all species on earth subsequent to uranium mining and nuclear power and nuclear waste.

Aurora: I would like to talk a little bit about NATO. Spain and Iceland are nuclear weapons free zones and are also members of NATO. Denmark does not allow nuclear weapons on its soil or in its harbours in peacetime. Do other NATO members have nuclear weapons restrictions?

Caldicott: We know that Denmark voted to do that, but they just had an election on that issue and I’m not sure where they presently stand. I know that there are strong movements in many countries to be nuclear free, including Germany. Britain is much slower. The Philippines are having a referendum. Australia is heading in that direction, although most Australians don’t realize this yet. And you are heading in that direction, together with strong movements in Holland and all the Scandinavian countries so that the trend appears to be toward nuclear-free countries. Along with the Gorbachev-Reagan talks, although they produced absolutely nothing at this last Summit, there seems to be an evolving sanity in the world. But to parallel that, the arms race increases mightily daily.

Aurora: If Canada were to become a nuclear weapons free zone, would this affect our influence in NATO?

Caldicott: It would affect your influence in NATO in that it would encourage other NATO countries to become nuclear free. NATO doesn’t protect Canada in any way, shape, or form because no one can protect Canada. In fact, you don’t have forces to defend your shores or your northern or southern borders. Canada becoming nuclear free would place much more pressure upon the super powers to become nuclear free rather than participate in the nuclear build-up.

Aurora: Regarding cruise missile tests over Alberta, the Canadian government says it is our commitment to NATO to allow this testing. What are your feelings about this?

Caldicott: I spoke to Pierre Trudeau about that years ago when he agreed to have them tested. He really didn’t understand at that time what cruise missiles were. I know, from one of your former high government officials, that you are only testing cruise missiles because the U.S. threatened your timber industry. You were bribed, which happens. The cruise missile agreement is not a NATO agreement. So that is a lie.

Aurora: Canada is becoming more militarized with the low-level flight training in Goose Bay, Labrador. Our government is lobbying NATO to establish the tactical fighter weapons training centre there. Canada wants to establish a permanent military base in the North and is proposing the purchase of nuclear-powered submarines. Are countries threatened by all of this activity in Canada?

Caldicott: Of course. The Soviet Union is threatened because your submarines would be used to attack Soviet submarines. If your submarines destroy a Soviet submarine, that could well induce a nuclear war and end most life on the planet. The participation to militarize Goose Bay is also threatening to the Soviet Union. Militarization of your North is part of the Northern Early Warning Systems, which is part of the Star Wars first strike scenario. It is extremely evocative and provocative and could initiate nuclear war. I don’t know why you Canadians allow this from Mulroney, who is just a Reagan clone. You know Reagan isn’t very smart, and I don’t think Mulroney is either. Your politicians are not well informed on this issue at all; they tend to echo what Washington tells them to do. I would think that you should be very indignant that you are represented by people who really don’t know what they are doing.

Aurora: Do you see any value in alliances such as NATO, the Warsaw Pact, or ANZUS?

Caldicott: No, not in a nuclear world, because, first of all, war is obsolete. If there were a conventional war now between the super powers or in Europe, it would, within days, escalate to a nuclear war. Most of the nuclear reactors would be targeted in a conventional war. Europe would be uninhabitable from a radiological perspective for the rest of time. So what are all these alliances about? God only knows. I think it is permissible and perfectly acceptable to develop border defences so that you can defend your own border, but that is all. That is all you need because any other war in any other country in the world or between the nation states could induce a nuclear war.

Aurora: Arguments favouring defence spending presume a threat to national security and the need to defend peace and freedom. What is the definition of "security"? Is there a threat?

Caldicott: Security in Canada is that you don’t all get killed, and the only thing that can kill you is the Soviet intercontinental ballistic missiles. The only way for you to develop security and peace in Canada is to eliminate those ICBMs, and that can only be done by becoming a nuclear free state. This would pressure both the Soviet Union and the United States to get down to business and to eliminate, bilaterally, ICBMs. Don’t forget, American missiles are a threat too. I know the designer of the missiles who said, once they are launched, no one knows where they are going to land. You are the meat in the sandwich and they will land on you, too, by accident. For Third World countries - India, African, Asia, and Central and South America - security means being left in peace without the super powers fighting surrogate wars in their country and killing them. Security means being left to develop their own national government. Security means using their land to grow food for themselves, not to grow cash crops like bananas, pineapples, coffee, and cocoa for the First World to eat in luxury. We live in gross affluence and luxury while the rest of the world starves. We are just feeding upon the poor people of the planet. If they could own their land, grow their own food and be left in peace that would be security for those Third World countries.

Aurora: The concept of an enemy is used to justify enormous military budgets. It has been said that the United States has freedom of expression, but uses thought control. People are not skeptical enough of their government, their news media, and other information sources, and they believe what they are told. Would you agree with that?

Caldicott: Absolutely. Since the end of the First World War, there has been a most sophisticated propaganda exercise in the United States conducted by the multinational corporations. This was mostly to sell products but also as a social engineering ploy to encourage the belief that socialism, egalitarianism, and true freedom are forms of communism. The equation they worked out goes like this: free enterprise equals freedom equals capitalism equals patriotism and nationalism equals Christianity and God; however, egalitarianism and equality equal socialism (which is what Jesus and all other religions preach) equals unionism equals communism equals Satan.

The American people are naive and gullible. They are brilliantly brainwashed by subliminal psychology and propaganda through television. They believe almost anything their government tells them, even though time and again it is proven that the government lies to them. The government is run by the corporations. I talked about that during my Canadian tour.

Aurora: Margaret Thatcher, Indira Ghandi, and Golda Meir have been powerful and influential in a fairly hardened, aggressive, and insensitive way. Are these the traits politicians need to succeed?

Caldicott: No. Those women, living in a patriarchal world, had to become like men to learn the game that men play, which is cruel, aggressive, power hungry, and quite murderous, psychologically. I know that because I have lived in the male world of medicine for many years. It is true that as a woman, if you really want to succeed in this area, you have to become better than men at their game.

I propose that there be proportional representation in every government of the world, that 53 per cent be women. If that happened, we wouldn’t have to behave like men. There would be mutual reinforcement of our ethics, values, emotions, and intuitions; we could be ourselves in a way that we have never experienced before. We would legislate away the weapons and start feeding the children of the world and setting up health clinics and immunization programs. This is the way to save the world.

Aurora: With a female Prime Minister and many cabinet ministers, Norway is beginning to do just that. They are taking money from the military to provide for health care, social services, and education. Have you thought of running for political office?

Caldicott: I have. I wouldn’t be interested in being a backbencher for long. I am not interested in power games, and being a yes person. But I would love to become a politician of some influence in Australia so that I could help her become nuclear free. I hope this happens so that I could help the desperate plight of the Aborigines, so I could stop our land from being ravaged and exploited, and save the forests, and help the plight of women here, and try to fix the medical system. There are so many things to be done.

Aurora: What is your next campaign?

Caldicott: We have entered it now. It is to form a new section of the Australian Labour Party call Green Labour so that we can influence and change the policy of the present government. We’d like to stop uranium mining and exporting, eliminate the U.S. bases, stop American and other nuclear armed and powered ships from coming into our harbours, and save the forests in our country. We have two plates: an anti-nuclear plate and an environment plate. We will start there and see how it goes.

Books by Helen Coldicott

Missile Envy: The Arms Race and Nuclear War. New York: Morrow, 1984

Nuclear Madness: What You Can Do. Toronto: Bantam Books, 1980.

Interview originally published Winter 1988.

Joan Sherman is an Athabasca area resident who has actively promoted peace, conservation, and environmental issues for 25 years. Her interests in the political process, the hazards of uranium mining, and North American thought control are common to the concerns of Dr. Caldicott.

An Aurora Update

Since this article was published, Dr. Caldicott has written three other books: If You Love This Planet: A Plan to Heal the Earth (1992, W.W. Norton), A Desperate Passion: An Autobiography (1996, W.W. Norton), and The New Nuclear Danger: George Bush's Military-Industrial Complex (2002, New Press). Throughout the years, she has been the recipient of several honourary degrees and prestigious awards and prizes for her work.

In 1987, Dr. Caldicott ran as an independent for Federal Parliament in Australia. She defeated the leader of the National Party, but eventually lost the election through preferential voting. Dr. Caldicott is currently residing in the United States, has returned to practise pediatrics, and continues to lecture on a regular basis.

Books by Helen Coldicott

An Aurora Update

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