|
|
|
NEWS RELEASE
|
News Bureau • Schofield Hall 201 • Eau Claire, WI 54702
phone: (715) 836-4741
fax: (715) 836-2900 |
Dr. Helen Caldicott Opens
Forum Series
At UW-Eau Claire Sept. 11
|
MAILED: Aug. 27, 2001
EAU CLAIRE — Dr. Helen Caldicott, the world’s leading spokesperson
for the anti-nuclear movement, will open the 60th season of The Forum at the
University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire on Tuesday, Sept. 11.
Her lecture, titled “George W. Bush and the Threat of
Nuclear War,” will begin at 7:30 p.m. in Zorn Arena, and will be followed by a
question-and-answer session and a reception.
Caldicott will share her assessment of President Bush’s
ties to the nuclear industry while explaining in plain English the meaning and
ramifications of current nuclear policy. She asserts that the U.S. Department of
Energy’s Manhattan II project and Bush’s plan to develop a national missile
defense system violate the spirit of international treaties and will cause a new
arms buildup around the world — both in countries that currently have nuclear
arms, and in a host of other countries with far less stable governments.
Dividing her time between her native Australia and the
United States, Caldicott has devoted 30 years to an international campaign to
educate the public about the medical hazards of the nuclear age.
“As a doctor, as well as a mother and a world citizen,
I wish to practice the ultimate form of preventive medicine by ridding the earth
of these technologies that propagate disease, suffering and death,” Caldicott
has said.
In 1971 Caldicott played a major role in Australia’s
opposition to French atmospheric nuclear testing in the Pacific. In 1975 she
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 U.S. from 1977 to 1986, Caldicott
co-founded Physicians for Social Responsibility, an organization that today
numbers 20,000 physicians, nurses and health care professionals committed to
educating their colleagues about the dangers of nuclear power, nuclear weapons
and nuclear war. The international umbrella group International Physicians for
the Prevention of Nuclear War won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1985.
Caldicott was an instructor in pediatrics at Harvard
Medical School and on the staff of the Children’s Hospital Medical Center in
Boston until 1980, when she resigned to work full time on the prevention of
nuclear war.
Returning to Australia in 1987, Caldicott ran as an
independent candidate for Federal Parliament. Although she defeated Charles
Blunt, leader of the National Party, through preferential voting she ultimately
lost the election by 600 votes out of 70,000 cast.
After she finished practicing pediatrics at the Sydney
Children’s Hospital in January 1998, Caldicott returned to full-time
anti-nuclear and environmental campaigning. She has founded a new political
party in Australia called Our Common Future Party, and is a candidate for the
Senate in the upcoming Australian federal election.
The subject of the Oscar-nominated documentary “Eight
Minutes to Midnight: A Portrait of Dr. Helen Caldicott” (1981) and the Academy
Award-winning “If You Love This Planet” (1982), Caldicott has written four
books — “Nuclear Madness” (1979), “Missile Envy” (1984), “If You
Love This Planet: A Plan to Heal the Earth” (1992) and “A Desperate Passion:
An Autobiography” (1996). Her new book, “The New Nuclear Danger: George
Bush’s Military-Industrial Psychosis and Its Tragic Consequences,” will be
published in the U.S. in April 2002.
Caldicott has won numerous awards and honorary degrees
for her efforts and was personally nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by Nobel
laureate Linus Pauling. Both the Smithsonian Institute and the Ladies Home
Journal named her one of the Most Influential Women of the 20th Century.
Admission is $7 for the public; $5 for those age 62 and
over and UW System or Chippewa Valley Technical College faculty/staff; or $3 for
those age 17 and under and UW System or CVTC students. Tickets are available at
the University Service Center in Davies Center and will be sold at the door.
Patrons may also charge their tickets to MasterCard or
Visa when they order by phone. Call the University Service Center, (715)
836-3727 — or, outside the immediate Eau Claire area, call toll-free (800)
949-UWEC. A $3 handling fee will be added to all telephone charge orders.
Season subscription information is also available at the
Service Center. A range of subscription packages is available, offering
discounts of 10 to 20 percent.
The Forum is made possible by student funds allocated by
the UW-Eau Claire Student Senate.
30-
JS/NW
[Administrative Offices]
[News Bureau]
Janice B. Wisner
UW-Eau Claire News Bureau
Schofield 201
(715) 836-4741
newsbur@uwec.edu
Updated: Aug. 27, 2001
|
|