IPPNW Aiming for Prevention leaders brought their expertise on health effects of armed violence to a recent series of strategic meetings on arms control held in cities from New York to Geneva. On May 12th Dr. Nidia Rodriguez of Ecuador spoke at the UN Programme of Action on Small Arms Meeting of Government Experts (see “Survivors of Gun Violence” post from May 12th) A few days later on May 17th Dr. Donald Mellman participated in a strategy session on “The Arms Trade Treaty (ATT): Crossing the Finish Line,” organized by the Arms Control Association and held at the Stimson Center in Washington, DC. It was attended by a wide range of groups including many from the faith community.
Across the Atlantic, Dr. Michael Schober of IPPNW Austria addressed the UN NGO Committee for Peace in Vienna, on the topic “The role of NGOs in the process of negotiating an effective Arms Trade Treaty (ATT).” He shared the dais with Mag. Christian Brunmayr, Head of Arms Exports Control, Austrian Federal Ministry for European and International Affairs. The meeting was chaired by Dr. Klaus Renolder also of IPPNW-Austria. At the same time in neighboring Geneva, IPPNW co-president Dr. Bob Mtonga participated in a key meeting organized by Saferworld and attended by dozens of government officials in preparation for the July 3rd PrepCom for the ATT to which IPPNW plans to send a delegation and actively participate and speak.
Read Dr. Schober’s presentation (PPT/flyer)
Read more about the Arms Trade Treaty here.
Militarist madness
Despite the vast rivers of blood and treasure poured into wars over the centuries, the nations of the world continue to enhance their military might.
According to a recent report from the prestigious Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), world military expenditures grew to a record $1.63 trillion in 2010. Middle East nations alone spent $111 billion on the military, with Saudi Arabia leading the way.
Arms sales have also reached record heights. SIPRI’s Top 100 of the world’s arms-producing companies sold $401 billion in weaponry during 2009 (the latest year for which figures are available), a real dollar increase of eight percent over the preceding year and 59 percent since 2002. These military companies do a particularly brisk business overseas, where they engage in fierce battles for weapons contracts. “There is intense competition between suppliers for big-ticket deals in Asia, the Middle East, North Africa and Latin America,” reports Dr. Paul Holtom, Director of the SIPRI Arms Transfers Program. Until recently, in fact, defense contractors scrambled vigorously to sell arms to Libya.
In numerous ways, the United States is at the head of the pack. Read more…
Hubris and the survival of mankind
Hubris and the survival of mankind
Lloyd J. Dumas: The technology trap. Where human error and malevolence meet powerful technologies. Praeger, 2010.
In the Greek tragedies of antiquity hubris is often seen as the most severe of human transgressions. “Hubris” is translated by Webster as “wanton insolence or arrogance resulting from excessive pride or passion.” It is often hubris which in the end causes the wrath and revenge of the gods, nemesis divina.
Carl Sagan, astronomer and famous TV personality in the 1980s, pondered upon hubris. He asked the question: Why is there no one out there in the universe who contacts us? There ought to be civilizations within surmountable distance able to send signals. We have not heard from them. This problem, the so called Fermi paradox, is evaluated in the Frank Drake equation, which is well explained in Wikipedia. Maybe any technologically advanced society by necessity carries within itself the seed of its own destruction and survives only for a short time?
For the first time in the history of mankind we have the power to annihilate ourselves. That could occur through malicious action, as in Kurt Vonnegut’s story Cat’s Cradle, by a dictator who wants us all to die with him. It could also happen by mistake, a simple human mistake. Read more…
Survivors of gun violence
An unusual “open-ended” Meeting of Government Experts (MGE) convened at the United Nations in New York this week, bringing together technical experts on small arms trafficking to discuss “challenges and opportunities” related to the International Tracing Instrument (ITI) that is part of the framework of the UN Programme of Action (PoA).
Aiming for Prevention activist Nidia Rodriguez of Ecuador (second from right in photo) is representing IPPNW at the meeting, and spoke today at a special panel organized by the International Action Network on Small Arms (IANSA) and sponsored by the Mission of Luxembourg, entitled “Survivors of Gun Violence: Strengthening the UN Programme of Action.”
“The human face of gun violence, Dr. Rodriguez said, “is a critical one that we must never forget. It can get lost in the policy debates and the statistics and legal terms and negotiations. But I can tell you that, as a physician, I never forget.”
I was asked to share a doctor’s perspective on small arms and violence in general, and in particular in Latin America and Ecuador, my home country. So I will speak for myself, but also for all the gun violence victims; those I have treated, those I will treat, those that my colleagues around the globe treat, and all their families and communities that are also affected. Thus, I’m here today to advocate for my patients.
“The most important aspect about gun violence is that every case is a face, a family, a world, and, sadly, a long journey of rehabilitation, negative life changes and a significant expense from the individual to the government levels.”
The full text of Dr. Rodriguez’s talk is available here.
To learn more about the MGE, go here.
Japan’s Nuclear Nightmare: Lessons for Malaysia
by Ronald S. McCoy
[Dr. McCoy, a former Co-President of IPPNW, presented the following paper at a public forum called “Eleven Days After Japan’s Nuclear Fallout: Selangor’s Perspective,” organized by the Selangor state government on March 22, 2011.]
For the past eleven days, Japan has been reeling from an unprecedented human disaster of awesome proportions. First, a record-breaking earthquake, 8.9 on the Richter scale, off the north-eastern coast of the Japanese island of Honshu. Then, a towering ten-metre tsunami which killed tens of thousands of people, destroyed almost everything in its path, and wrecked the cooling systems of a nuclear power plant.
The earthquake automatically shut-down the six nuclear reactors of the Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear power plant. But it also knocked out the power grid, forcing operators to use back-up generators to keep coolant flowing into hot reactor cores. Then the tsunami swept in, knocked out the generators, cut off power, and finally knocked out the plant’s cooling systems. All at once, four out of its six nuclear reactors were in dire trouble from overheating and in danger of emitting radioactive particles into the environment. Three reactors are threatening a meltdown and a fourth reactor’s spent fuel storage pool on fire and threatening to release deadly radiation into the environment.
Latest reports indicate that significant levels of radioactive iodine-131 have been detected in Tokyo’s tap water and caesium-137 in soil 40 km from Fukushima.
Radioactivity is the spontaneous emission of particles from the unstable nuclei of atoms, such as uranium. There are three main types of radioactivity, easily distinguished by their different penetrating powers. They are alpha, beta and gamma particles.
There are few environmental dangers more lasting or more fearsome than radiation from a nuclear accident. We have experienced such dangers at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl. The truth of Murphy’s Law has been revealed once again at Fukushima: “If something can go wrong, sooner or later it will go wrong.” Read more…
Peace Boat promotes Middle East NWFZ
A few weeks ago, members of IPPNW’s Mediterranean Commission, including Andi Nidecker of Switzerland, Maria Sotiropolou of Greece, and Hillel Schenker of Israel, joined peace activists from Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine, India, Japan, and the US aboard the Peace Boat—an oceanliner that makes two or three worldwide cruises each year under the auspices of a Japanese NGO of the same name.
The March cruise, called “Horizon 2012,” was in part a strategy meeting on ways civil society groups can support progress toward a nuclear-weapon-free zone in the Middle East.”
Participants in Peace Boat's "Horizon 2012" cruise included Andi Nidecker and Maria Sotiropoulo (2nd and 3rd from left) and Hillel Schenker (2nd from right)
A Middle East NWFZ was a high priority recommendation of the 2010 Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference, which called for an international conference on an agreement to create such a zone in 2012. No specific plans to organize such a conference have been made to date.
Peace Boat organizers report that “the main focus of the discussions was the general interest in the 2012 conference on a ‘zone free of weapons of mass destruction.’ In the conference meetings, members pondered how NGOs could potentially contribute successfully to the proposed international conference, including how to encourage respective government bodies to take action. Although the conference hopefully will indeed take place in 2012, political leaders have not begun preparing adequately for the meeting.”
Akira Kawasaki, a Peace Boat coordinator and a Vice Chair of ICAN—the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons—said that the NGO plans to organize a series of civil society roundtables that can engage professionals, academics, journalists, and others in efforts to build public support for the conference and to facilitate confidence building among different constituencies in the region.
Target Tallin
On April 24, at the conclusion of the European Student Congress, IPPNW medical students held another Target X installation in Tallinn, Estonia. Students and young doctors took to the streets of the Estonian capital, handing out leaflets about the ongoing dangers posed by nuclear weapons and reiterating our central messages: doctors have no meaningful medical response to a nuclear catastrophe and cities are not targets!
IPPNW students have organized a total of 56 Target X installations in more than 20 countries, including India, the US, Russia, France, the UK, Iran, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands. Reports and photos from all these events can be found on the medical student website.
This post is not about the Royal Wedding, nor is it about the killing of Osama Bin Laden (or a photo of such). Having said that, you may wonder what else there is in the world to talk about. Certainly you might have got the impression lately that one issue fell neatly off the world agenda: the topic of “tactical” nuclear weapons (TNW) in Europe.
However, IKV/Pax Christi in the Netherlands was determined to stop that happening. About a month ago they published a report entitled “Withdrawal Issues” (note the addiction pun). The report was really a snapshot of NATO member state positions at the time of the debate on a new Strategic Concept. These positions were anything but hard and fast and have invariably altered somewhat since the Concept was agreed upon, and in light of the report itself. But the general message that the report gave was this: that the remaining 180 US TNW in Europe were no longer of value and that most countries would be in favour of withdrawal if certain conditions were met. The problem was that there was, and is, no agreement on what those conditions should be.
Last week I attended a small – but very good – meeting in Helsinki, organised by the Finnish Peace Union and BASIC, entitled “NATO Nuclear Deterrence and Defence: A Nordic Perspective”. It was an informal dinner and a seminar with government representatives from the Baltic States, Scandinavia, Eastern and Central Europe, think tanks and NGOs. Gunnar Westberg and I were there for IPPNW. The meeting was “behind closed doors”, so I can’t attribute any comments to anyone in particular, but I can tell you a little about what I gleaned from the discussion. Read more…
Physicians for Social Responsibility Cites Flawed Evacuation Zones, Nuclear’s Health Risks on Chernobyl Anniversary
Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR), the US affiliate of IPPNW, today cited gross inadequacies in evacuation zones around nuclear reactors and underscored the ongoing health risks of nuclear energy to the public. The 25th anniversary of Chernobyl and the continuing crisis at Fukushima—both Level 7 nuclear disasters—are clear reminders that standard evacuation zones cannot protect the public from a nuclear accident. One-third of the population of the United States (over 111 million people) lives within 50 miles of a nuclear reactor. Given the consequences of the Chernobyl and Fukushima disasters, PSR is calling for a major reassessment of contingency plans for nuclear accidents, as well as a full and fair accounting of the data on the impact to public health and the environment.
PSR unveiled a new interactive Evacuation Zone Map at a press conference today held jointly with the Institute for Policy Studies’ Robert Alvarez. The map shows a person’s residence in relation to a nuclear reactor and an evacuation zone.
“The original evacuation zone around the Fukushima reactors and the current 10-mile evacuation zone mandated in the US are insufficient,” said Jeff Patterson, DO, immediate past president of Physicians for Social Responsibility. “We must reevaluate our contingency plans for protecting the public from these dangerous reactor sites. The nuclear industry, and our government, continues to put innocent lives at risk by ignoring the real dangers of nuclear accidents to public health. As we have seen in nuclear testing, the Kyshtym explosion, Chernobyl and now in Fukushima, when catastrophic releases of radiation happen, they quickly affect not just populations nearby but the whole world, spreading long-lived radioactive pollution everywhere.” Read more…
Children of Fukushima need our protection
By Tilman Ruff
[Originally published in Kyodo News.]
I was dismayed to learn that the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology earlier this week increased the allowable dose of ionizing radiation for children in Fukushima Prefecture.
The dose they set, 3.8 microsieverts per hour, equates to more than 33 millisieverts (mSv) over a year. This is to apply to children in kindergartens, nursery, primary and junior high schools. Let me try to put this in perspective.
Widely accepted science tells us that the health risk from radiation is proportional to the dose — the bigger the dose the greater the risk, and there is no level without risk.
The International Commission on Radiological Protection recommends that all radiation exposure be kept as low as achievable, and for the public, on top of background radiation and any medical procedures, should not exceed 1 mSv per year.
For nuclear industry workers, they recommend a maximum permissible annual dose of 20 mSv averaged over five years, with no more than 50 mSv in any one year.
In Japan the maximum allowed annual dose for workers, 100 mSv, was already higher than international standards. This has been increased in response to the Fukushima disaster to 250 mSv.
The U.S. National Academy of Sciences BEIR VII report estimates that each 1 mSv of radiation is associated with an increased risk of solid cancer (cancers other than leukemia) of about 1 in 10,000; an increased risk of leukemia of about 1 in 100,000; and a 1 in 17,500 increased risk of dying from cancer.
But a critical factor is that not everyone faces the same level of risk. For infants (under 1 year of age) the radiation-related cancer risk is 3 to 4 times higher than for adults; and female infants are twice as susceptible as male infants.
Females’ overall risk of cancer related to radiation exposure is 40 percent greater than for males. Fetuses in the womb are the most radiation-sensitive of all.
The pioneering Oxford Survey of Childhood Cancer found that X-rays of mothers, involving doses to the fetus of 10-20 mSv, resulted in a 40 percent increase in the cancer rate among children up to age 15.
In Germany, a recent study of 25 years of the national childhood cancer register showed that even the normal operation of nuclear power plants is associated with a more than doubling of the risk of leukemia for children under 5 years old living within 5 kilometers of a nuclear plant.
Increased risk was seen to more than 50 km away. This was much higher than expected, and highlights the particular vulnerability to radiation of children in and outside the womb.
In addition to exposure measured by typical external radiation counters, the children of Fukushima will also receive internal radiation from particles inhaled and lodged in their lungs, and taken in through contaminated food and water.
A number of radioactive substances are concentrated up the food chain and in people. As a parent, as a physician, the decision to allow the children of Fukushima to be exposed to such injurious levels of radiation is an unacceptable abrogation of the responsibility of care and custodianship for our children and future generations.
Tilman Ruff is Regional Vice President for Southeast Asia and the Pacific; chair of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons; and associate professor at the Nossal Institute for Global Health at the University of Melbourne, Australia.
Bimal Khadka
Bjorn Hilt
Charles K. Johnson
Gunnar Westberg
IPPNW
John Loretz
Lawrence Wittner
Maria Valenti
mollymcgint
Sue Wareham
Tilman Ruff
Tim Wright
Xanthe Hall
IPPNW peace and health blog 