[ RadSafe ] Dr Helen Caldicott, Rosallie , Leuren Moret, how they get support from some gullible people

[parthasarathy k s]

Dear Prof Raabe,


In India, we had a very unpleasant experience a few years ago. Dr(??) Rosalie Bertell famous anti nuclear activist visited Bombay and delivered a lecture on radiation effects. A few of my friends (one of them a Ph.D from a US University and with a few papers in radiobiology in peer reviewed journals to his credit) attended the meeting. There were some eminent individuals among the participants.

The gentle man who presided over the meeting, if my recollection is correct,an ex Judge of Bombay High Court ,pompously invited the audience for questions to the speaker. My friends asked some fundamental questions. There was visible embarrassment among some of the participants. Asking such questions to an invitee was considered improper by them. Chairman intervened and declared that there will not be any more questions in that session. "If you want to ask questions you may meet with her separately, he said.

A few years ago, Ms Leuren Moret visited India. She spoke at the gathering of eminent people in Delhi. A day later she came to Mumbai and was scheduled to talk to the media. Since she was going to talk about radiation, one of my colleagues- a senior reporter of a national news agency- sought me details about her background. I  sent a message to RADSAFE and received prompt replies. I passed them to my colleague. Finally Moret or the organizers of the press conference unilaterally called it off!.

Later, in her website,Ms Moret claimed that I used  my influence with the Central Government to cancel her meeting. Nothing of the sort happened. Mumbai journalists on that occasion showed some sophistication and were not willing to listen to patent anti nuclear propaganda.

I used to wonder how these activists get support from some gullible persons belonging to all walks of life

Parthasarathy






________________________________
 From: Otto G. Raabe <ograabe at ucdavis.edu>
To: The International Radiation Protection (Health Physics) Mailing List <radsafe at agni.phys.iit.edu> 
Sent: Tuesday, 20 March 2012, 0:59
Subject: Re: [ RadSafe ] Tour of Dr Helen Caldicott
 
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.


**********************************************
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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