[ RadSafe ] Tour of Dr Helen Caldicott

[Otto G. Raabe]

Helen Caldicott's statements are easily dismissed by knowledgeable 
scientists, but may be misleading and troubling to many members of 
the public and the press.. She claims that her medical training makes 
her especially qualified to understand radiation risks. I met her in 
New York City in 1998 at a reception in her apartment. I also 
attended a dinner reception in her honor hosted by an antinuclear 
group. She has a following.

Dr. Caldicott is a part-time pediatrician with no training in 
radiation safety whose views about radiation risks are misleading. 
Although she graduated from an Australian medical school and did some 
clinical work in Boston, I believe that her career has mostly been as 
an anti-nuclear activist.

Why does Helen Caldicott work so hard to spread radiation risk claims?.

In her autobiography (which I read) she describes being frightened as 
a teenager by a fictional nuclear war in a novel entitled "On the 
Beach" by the Australian writer Nevil Shute. She further describes 
her "desperate passion" to have a public voice, and eventually 
finding  it in the antinuclear movement.

She seems convinced that all nuclear technology is evil. When 
fighting evil, apparently radiation safety science is apparently not 
relevant.

Helen Caldicott's "desperate passion" has become a mission to alarm 
the public about her imagined risk of all radiation exposures.

Now she is about 75 years old, but here mission has not changed.


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Prof. Otto G. Raabe, Ph.D., CHP
Center for Health & the Environment
University of California
One Shields Avenue
Davis, CA 95616
E-Mail: ograabe at ucdavis.edu
Phone: (530) 752-7754   FAX: (530) 758-6140
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