Honors to a former staffer
Congratulations to former staff member Garrett FitzGerald, who has been named the John and Judy Scully Fellow in Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame’s Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies. Garrett served as IPPNW’s development officer from 2010 to 2015, blending a commitment to peace work with experience in nonviolence education and community organizing. He returned to academic life last year to study the relationships among religion, ethics, and politics, and has clearly made his mark. Garrett’s many friends at IPPNW wish him continued success.
IPPNW mourns a founder and leader, Herb Abrams
Dr. Herbert L. Abrams, one of the original founders and leaders of IPPNW, passed away peacefully at his home on January 20, 2016. He was 95 years old. In 1979, Dr. Abrams, then the chairman of the radiology department at Harvard Medical School, was among a small group of Harvard physicians who began discussing the urgent need for a Soviet-American dialogue on the threat of nuclear war. Encouraged by the response they received from their Soviet colleagues, Dr. Abrams, Dr. Bernard Lown, Dr. James Muller, and Dr. Eric Chivian formally organized IPPNW in 1980 as a non-profit educational organization. In the ensuing years, IPPNW’s founders demonstrated to the world that American and Soviet physicians could cooperate on the gravest threat to health and human survival, which led to the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to IPPNW only five years later. Dr. Abrams remained an active leader in both IPPNW and Physicians for Social Responsibility, the US affiliate of IPPNW, contributing to the intellectual and organizational growth of the physicians’ movement.
A moving tribute to this giant in medicine and peace work has been written by his son John Abrams, and is reprinted here.
Herbert L. Abrams
1920-2016
by John Abrams
Hebert Leroy Abrams – physician, scholar, author, and activist – died peacefully at home in Palo Alto, California, on January 20, 2016, surrounded by family. He was 95.
His illustrious, multi-dimensional career embraced what he called the “four dimensions of bio-medicine” – patient care, research, teaching, and advocacy. Read more…
“Modernizing” the opportunities for nuclear war
Federation of American Scientists illustration
A fight now underway over newly-designed US nuclear weapons highlights how far the Obama administration has strayed from its commitment to build a nuclear-free world.
The fight, as a recent New York Times article indicates, concerns a variety of nuclear weapons that the US military is currently in the process of developing or, as the administration likes to say, “modernizing.” Last year, the Pentagon flight-tested a mock version of the most advanced among them, the B61 Model 12. Read more…
States of hope and states of concern
At the UN General assembly last fall there was an essential vote on the future of mankind. Resolution number A/RES/70/33 calling for the international society to take forward multilateral nuclear disarmament negotiations had been submitted by Austria, Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Georgia, Ghana, Guatemala, Ireland, Kenya, Lichtenstein, Malta, Marshall Islands, Mexico, Nigeria, Panama, Peru, Philippines, South Africa, Trinidad and Tobago, Uruguay and Venezuela. For that, these countries deserve our deep respect and gratitude. Read more…
American casualties of the US nuclear weapons program
When Americans think about nuclear weapons, they comfort themselves with the thought that these weapons’ vast destruction of human life has not taken place since 1945—at least not yet. But, in reality, it has taken place, with shocking levels of US casualties. Read more…
DPRK nuclear test: dangerous and irresponsible
IPPNW condemns today’s test of a nuclear weapon by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. We urge the DPRK government to reconsider its pursuit of nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them, and to join with the majority of States that have pledged to stigmatize, prohibit and eliminate nuclear weapons because of their unacceptable humanitarian impact. Read more…
Docs to US Congress – Lift the ban on gun violence research
A Who’s Who of public health and medical organizations, from the American Academy of Pediatrics to the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, from the American Public Health Association to the Society for Public Health Education, recently called on the US Congress to “lift the current ban on funding for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) related to gun violence prevention research.” A letter to the US Senate and House Appropriations’ Committee signed by 25 major organizations further urged appropriation of “at least $10 million in FY 2016, along with sufficient new funding at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), to support research into the causes and prevention of gun violence.” Read more…
Campaigning for global peace in a time of war
The year 2015 will be remembered sadly for the many ways in which war and armed violence devastated the lives of millions of people around the world—armed conflicts in Ukraine, the Middle East, and Africa; a global refugee crisis spawned by those conflicts and by the atrocities of the radical Islamic State; massacres in Kenya, Nigeria, Syria and elsewhere; an expanded use of cluster munitions and landmines in conflict zones; and countless other mass shootings and suicide bombings.
The nuclear-armed states not only wasted another year in avoiding compliance with their disarmament obligations, but they also made matters worse by increasing their investments in nuclear modernization programs. The much-touted international agreement with Iran on its nuclear programs was overshadowed by the increased risk that escalation of the conflicts in Ukraine, South Asia, or the Middle East could lead to the use of nuclear weapons by those who actually have them.
In the midst of the seemingly endless series of headlines about the victims of war, armed violence, and acts of terror, 2015 was a year when IPPNW and its many partners in civil society took significant steps to ban and eliminate nuclear weapons and to bring the expertise of doctors and public health professionals to the global promotion of violence prevention. Read more…
“What if?” (part 2)
Yesterday, I asked what would happen if a leader of a nuclear-armed state decided to use nuclear weapons and they (thankfully) didn’t work. Here’s another “what if” question: What if we were to ban and eliminate nuclear weapons and remove that threat to our existence at the source? Read more…
What if?
A poster of a broken missile taped to the fence of Greenham Common by a protester in 1982. Poster by Peter Kennard
Former UK Defence Minister Des Browne is worried that Britain’s Trident submarines could be put out of commission by a cyberattack. What if, he asked the BBC last month, the prime minister “needs to reach for” nuclear weapons and they don’t work?
Putting aside the temptation to jump down all the rabbit holes opened by questions about cybersecurity and nuclear command and control systems, let’s take a literal look at what Browne asked. What if the person in charge of launching a country’s nuclear warheads decided to push the button and they didn’t detonate when they reached their targets? Or never left the subs or silos in the first place?
Here’s what wouldn’t happen. Read more…
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