The Medical Implications of Uranium Mining And Nuclear Power
Uranium, the fuel for nuclear power plants is plentiful in Australia, which owns 40% of the world’s accessible uranium.
The medical risks of nuclear power begin at the uranium mines because the men who mine uranium are exposed to constant levels of radiation both by inhaling radioactive radon gas, by swallowing radium which is very carcinogenic and to whole body exposure to gamma radiation like X rays which irradiates their testicles. Past records show that one third to one half of uranium miners in various countries have died of lung cancer.
The Australian Labor Party voted in June last year to overturn its long-standing No New Mines policy, and expand the Australian uranium mining and export industry.
When 100 tons of uranium fuel is fissioned in a nuclear power plant it becomes one billion times more radioactive than the original uranium, and more than 200 new radioactive elements are made. These elements constitute radioactive waste, some of which remain radioactive for 500,000 years.
Nuclear waste will expose future generations to epidemics of cancer and genetic diseases.
Contrary to the nuclear industry's propaganda, nuclear power is not green and it is certainly not clean. The industrial infrastructure which supports nuclear power emits large quantities of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Nuclear reactors also consistently release millions of curies of radioactive isotopes into the air and water each year which expose adjacent populations to the risk of cancer and congenital deformities.
At present there are 442 nuclear reactors in operation around the world. If, as the nuclear industry suggests, nuclear power were to replace fossil fuels on a large scale, it would be necessary to build 2000 large, 1000-megawatt reactors. Considering that no new nuclear plant has been ordered in the US since 1978, this proposal is less than practical. Furthermore, even if we decided today to replace all fossil-fuel-generated electricity with nuclear power, there would only be enough economically viable uranium to fuel the reactors for some nine years.
Globally respected Australian anti-nuclear campaigner and physician Dr Helen Caldicott leads the Board of People for a Nuclear Free Australia as Founder and Spokesperson.
An articulate and passionate advocate of citizen action to remedy the nuclear and environmental crises, Dr Helen Caldicott has devoted the last 35 years to an international campaign to educate the public about the medical hazards of the nuclear age and the necessary changes in human behavior to stop environmental destruction.
Born in Melbourne, Australia in 1938, Dr Caldicott received her medical degree from the University of Adelaide Medical School in 1961. She founded the Cystic Fibrosis Clinic at the Adelaide Children's Hospital in 1975 and subsequently was an instructor in pediatrics at Harvard Medical School and on the staff of the Children's Hospital Medical Center, Boston, Mass.
In 1971, Dr 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 United States from 1977 to 1986, she co-founded the Physicians for Social Responsibility, an organization of 23,000 doctors committed to educating their colleagues about the dangers of nuclear power, nuclear weapons and nuclear war which co-won the 1985 Nobel Peace Prize.
She was one of the leaders of the US Nuclear Freeze Movement in the 1980s which helped to bring the Cold War to an end. She has authored six books, is the holder of 19 honorary degrees and is the recipient of the inaugural Australian Peace Prize and the Lannan Prize for Cultural Freedom.
Dr Caldicott has also founded DOCTORS FOR A NUCLEAR-FREE AUSTRALIA (DNFA).