If You Love This Planet, Dr. Helen Caldicott

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Dr. Maricel Maffini is a Research Assistant Professor in the Department of Anatomy and Cellular Biology at Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston. Her research interests are in the field of carcinogenesis and developmental biology, and she has made a number of important observations in the field of breast cancer.

In this interview with
Dr. Caldicott, biologist Maffini explains the association between exposures to environmental estrogen-mimics during fetal life like bisphenol-A (BPA), a component in plastic, and breast cancer risk in adulthood. Dr. Caldicott asks Dr. Maffini about the the tremendous increase in breast cancer rates. According to the Breast Cancer Fund, which published the report State of the Evidence 2008:
The Connection Between Breast Cancer and the Environment, “breast cancer incidence rates in the United States increased by more than 40 percent between 1973 and 1998.” In discussing BPAs and their relationship to cancer, Dr. Maffini explains the toxic nature of products containing BPAs: water bottles, canned food containers, Coca-Cola bottles, DVDs, eyeglasses, protective dental substances, and the plastic pipes that transport tap water. She says that all plastics, even those without BPA, release some estrogenic compounds. Read the May 22 news article Drinking from Plastic Bottles ‘Increases Exposure to Gender-Bending Chemical’ and read the new study Use of Polycarbonate Bottles and Urinary Bisphenol A Concentrations.

The program explores bisphenol-A in great depth. Dr. Maffini points to two studies published in 2008 in the Journal of the American Medical Association linking BPA to heart disease and diabetes, plus high concentrations of certain liver enzymes, Bisphenol A and Risk of Metabolic Disorders and Association of Urinary Bisphenol-A Concentration With Medical Disorders and Laboratory Abnormalities in Adults. Dr. Maffini’s lab has also found a strong correlation between BPA and autism, hyperactivity and even obesity, and she describes in detail what happened in test situations.

The discoveries Dr. Maffini and her colleagues have made started with finding that the plastic tubing used in laboratories made breast cancer cells in controlled experiments “proliferate like mad.” Dr. Maffini refers to the 2004 Centers for Disease Control study showing BPA contamination in 93% of the population. She explains how children and women are particularly infiltrated with BPA. Read High BPA levels found in hospitalized, premature infants. And see the six-page brochure Hormone Disruptors and Women’s Health: Reasons for Concern.

Dr. Caldicott asks Dr. Maffini to comment on how girls are reaching puberty at a much earlier age now, with chemicals a suspected cause. The Breast Cancer Fund commissioned a study,
The Falling Age of Puberty in U.S. Girls:
What We Know, What We Need to Know, overseen by biologist and cancer survivor Sandra Steingraber, author of Living Downstream.

Two of the most important points on today’s program are that even minute amounts of many hormone mimickers cause damage, and that the synergistic effect of chemicals in combination is often much stronger than one chemical alone. The Environmental Protection Agency, Dr. Maffini says, does not correctly test chemicals in the amounts that would do the most damage, and does not study how chemicals become exponentially more harmful when blended together. And the Food and Drug Administration does not consider BPA harmful, but their findings may be compromised. Read To ban or not to ban: Bisphenol-A in food is OK with FDA but not with some scientists. Also see Growing controversy swirls around research article key to FDA’s decision on bisphenol A safety and Plastics industry behind FDA research on bisphenol A, study finds.

The air we breathe may also include BPAs. Be sure to examine Clearing the Air – Hidden Hazards of Air Fresheners, the Natural Resources Defense Council’s report about how air fresheners are laced with hormone-mimicking chemicals. For more on BPA, be sure to read Chemical Fallout, the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel’s Scripps Howard Award-winning series on bisphenol-A, which includes the articles BPA leaches from “microwave safe” products and Few companies seeking substitutes to
bisphenol A, study finds.

Dr. Maffini and Dr. Caldicott explore the hormonal effects of other plastic components, including phthlates (which are also hormone disruptors), as well as chemicals like DDT, still used on produce imported to the U.S.; plus Teflon, Styrofoam, parabens (in nearly all sunscreens, skin lotions and shampoos) and pesticides. See the report Concentrations of Parabens in Human Breast Tumors. Dr. Caldicott declares that “we live in a cocktail of estrogen mimickers.”

Today’s show also touches on polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) used in flame retar-dants, which have been found in people and animals all over the world. Read an abstract of the study, Brominated flame retar-dants in polar bears. Read about the study released last month on the prevalence of flame retardants in all U.S. coastal waters and the Great Lakes and read the full report here.

Plastics in many forms are causing havoc around the world, and do not biodegrade. Read Where Plastics Goes to Kill. In past interviews,
Dr. Maffini has recommended not microwaving food in plastic containers. Microwave ovens themselves have been found to damage the colloidal structure of food and water, which in turn weakens the human body, according to some studies.

Babies, young children, and pregnant women are particularly vulnerable to hormone-mimicking chemicals, and Dr. Maffini says that pregnant mothers should be warned to avoid all the sources of exposure she mentions on the program, just as they are told to not smoke or drink while pregnant. She points to success stories in the fight against hormone-mimicking chemicals like how Suffolk County on Long Island recently banned BPAs, and how removing the toxic lining in canned food in Japan caused a big drop in blood levels of BPA among college students in studies conducted over seven years. New development: read the May 14 article Chicago Bans Sale of Baby Bottles, Sippy Cups With BPA.

Dr. Caldicott concludes near the end of the program that the volume of chemicals linked to chronic diseases has produced a major public health emergency. Of the 80,000 chemicals in use today, only a fraction have been tested for carcinogenicity and other toxicity. Listen to find out much more about how “we have saturated our environment with untested toxins,” as
Dr. Caldicott says, and what you can do to protect yourself and your community from these unnecessary chemicals.

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Joseph Cirincione, President of the Ploughshares Fund, joins
Dr. Caldicott for a lively discussion about the world’s current nuclear environment, and proliferation concerns. Cirincione is author of Bomb Scare: The History and Future of Nuclear Weapons (published by Columbia University Press), and an expert advisor to the Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States. Ploughshares Fund is the largest grantmaking foundation in the U.S. dedicated exclusively to security and peace funding.

Cirincione and Dr. Caldicott start and end their discussion by focusing on the recent meeting between President Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, who issued a remarkable and historic document calling for a world free of nuclear weapons, and committing to steps to achieve total disarmament, including affirming the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (which has awaited ratification by the U.S. Senate for 10 years). This window to achieve disarmament is tremendously important, Dr. Caldicott and Cirincione agree, and the public must urge Obama to stay the course and eliminate nuclear weapons.

Cirincione talks about the new organization Global Zero, dedicated to increasing the present momentum to disarm nuclear weapons, and whose signatories include many major political and military figures.

This episode also examines the forces in government and industry who want to maintain the nuclear status quo, and continue to build nuclear weapons. Read the May 8 article The News on Nukes about U.S. plans regarding arms control and weapons building.
Dr. Caldicott has Cirincione elucidate exactly why
the nuclear superpowers still retain their weapons
20 years after the Cold War officially ended. Despite major reductions in their arsenals, both nations
still hold 96% of the world’s nuclear weapons, and could destroy the earth many times over in an accidental or deliberate nuclear holocaust. As mentioned previously, the Emmy-Award-winning 2007 documentary film White Light Black Rain powerfully illustrates the effects of nuclear weapons, and buying, watching and sharing the DVD is strongly recommended.

Today’s program covers the numbers of U.S. and Russian weapons and which ones are on alert and ready to fire, what countries the two nations target, and the shocking redundancy of weapons targeted on major cities. See the World Nuclear Stockpile Report (2009). Cirincione mentions how the many human and ecological effects of nuclear detonations, such as firestorms and fire damage, are seldom considered by war planners. In her lectures,
Dr. Caldicott has presented the findings of Lynn Eden, who wrote the report Whole World on Fire: Organizations, Knowledge, and Nuclear Weapons Devastation. Dr. Caldicott refers to an article she wrote with former Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, Still on Catastrophe’s Edge.

Dr. Caldicott asks Cirincione if the U.S. policy of first-strike winnable nuclear war is still in place, and Cirincione talks about the policy of first use of nuclear weapons which was implemented in the George W. Bush administration. In their discussion of nuclear war, Dr. Caldicott mentions the “Dead Hand” which is described in the article The Return of the Doomsday Machine. Bruce Blair, Ph.D., President of the World Security Institute and a former Minuteman ICBM launch control officer, talks about the hair-trigger alert status of the U.S. and Russian nuclear weapons, the few-minute decision time presidents face about whether to launch missiles, and how easily nuclear war could occur in his article A Rebuttal of the U.S. Statement on the Alert Status of U.S. Nuclear Forces. The World Security Institute started the Global Zero project.

The effects of electromagnetic pulse are described, and Dr. Caldicott and Cirincione concur it is a definite threat from nuclear warfare. However, Cirincione says the logic Newt Gingrich uses to support building a missile defense shield in his article EMP From One Nuke Could Destroy America is flawed. Cirincione says any missile defense concept is completely unworkable, and there is no effective protection which can block nuclear bombs once launched.

This program also addresses nuclear power. Dr. Caldicott and Cirincione illuminate how the U.S. selling nuclear power technology around the world means more and more countries could potentially build nuclear weapons. As mentioned on earlier programs, a nuclear power plant is itself a weapon that could kill hundreds of thousands of people, if it is bombed or sabotaged by terrorists and melts down. And contrary to propaganda by the nuclear power industry, atomic energy does not reduce global warming, as Dr. Caldicott describes.

To rid the world of nuclear weapons, Cirincione and Caldicott agree that every nuclear weapons state must eliminate all of their nuclear weapons, and the U.S. cannot enforce a policy of non-proliferation if it keeps any of its arsenal. Cirincione refers to the article The Logic of Zero: Toward a World Without Nuclear Weapons. Dr. Caldicott analogizes that in medicine, removing all cancer from a sick patient is necessary to prevent the cancer from spreading or recurring, and on the planet, eliminating all nuclear weapons is the only way to arrest the dangers nuclear weapons pose. This is another vital episode you won’t want to miss!

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In this episode of If You Love This Planet,
William Hartung, Director of the Arms and Security Initiative at the New America Foundation, discusses nuclear weapons, conventional arms sales, national security strategy and the economics of military spending. Hartung has been a featured expert on NBC News, the BBC, and Fox News. He co-edited the forthcoming book Lessons From Iraq – Avoiding the Next War (available May 1).

Hartung and Dr. Caldicott cover perhaps the most important issue facing Americans, whether they know it or not – that most of their tax dollars are spent on weapons and war, not on education, health care, job training, poverty, housing, infrastructure repairs, mass transit and averting global warming. Read more about Where Your Income Tax Money Really Goes. Hartung says that the military programs taxpayers fund are in almost every case unnecessary for security, while Dr. Caldicott says the true business of weapons makers like Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and Raytheon is mass murder and global annihilation, not “defense.” Read Iraq Air Raids Hit Mostly Women and Children. Hartung says that of every eighty-eight dollars going to the military, only one dollar is spent addressing climate change, which he calls an “unbelievable outrage.” Read Arctic meltdown is a threat to humanity.

As a result of the George W. Bush administration’s buildup, Hartung says, the U.S. is spending more on the military than at any time since World War II – over $1 trillion a year when all “defense” programs are included such as Homeland Security and the now military-focused NASA. See more on NASA below.

During the program, Dr. Caldicott and Hartung analyze many critical issues around military spending, including whether the present financial crisis can wake up Americans to stop funding the Pentagon war machine; how lobbyists from weapons firms hold Congress hostage; and what kind of “smoke and mirrors” arms makers use to convince politicians to fund their programs in nearly every state and Congressional district. Several chapters and an appendix in Dr. Caldicott’s 2004 book The New Nuclear Danger: George W. Bush’s Military Industrial Complex reveal how weapons companies shape U.S. foreign policy and government spending priorities.

Hartung and
Dr. Caldicott also explore the new unarmed aerial vehicles (UAVs) also known as drones, that the U.S. is using to kill people by remote control in Afghanistan and elsewhere.
Dr. Caldicott describes how the bombing missions could be conducted overseas by personnel in Florida, via computer. To learn more about UAVs, read Remote Control Death, Thousands Flee Bomb Attacks by US Drones, and The Drone War: A Closer Look.

This episode also investigates how all of NASA’s projects in the future will have a military component, mostly aimed at putting U.S. weapons in space. Dr. Caldicott quotes from an article, The Space Arms Race and the NASA Scam.

Dr. Caldicott ponders if President Obama can stand up to the behemoth of the military-industrial complex and withdraw funding for nuclear and space weapons; and she and Hartung question if achieving worldwide nuclear disarmament is possible without stemming the influence of arms makers and war planners. Read how Barack Obama Goes Ahead With Missile Defense Shield Despite Disarmament Pledge. Representative Barney Frank has proposed cutting the military budget by 25%.

Hartung and Dr. Caldicott discuss the fact that 95% of worldwide nuclear weapons are in the U.S. and Russian stockpiles. Each country has about 13,000 nuclear warheads. Hartung says he believes detonating as few as 250 nuclear weapons could induce nuclear winter. Dr. Caldicott and Hartung consider whether Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will be a force for nuclear disarmament. As a presidential candidate, she received more donations from arms makers than all other candidates combined.

Now, Hartung says, there is a major opportunity for the Obama administration and Congress to cut the military budget and to stop building nuclear weapons, but only if citizens take a much more active role in their government, and really put the pressure on. Hartung’s organization is writing a report on the U.S. nuclear weapons complex which want to expand and build many new bombs, which would certainly pose a roadblock to any arms control and disarmament treaties that Obama might sign. Read New Promise of a Nuclear-Free World. And be sure to hear this program!

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The U.S. is now spending more money on nuclear weapons than at the height of the Cold War, and the threat of nuclear war between the U.S. and Russia persists, but the
U.S. public is now mostly disassociated from the nuclear weapons issue. Today’s conversation cuts through the pacifying complexity mainstream media and politicians use when talking about nuclear bombs.
Seldom discussed is the
danger the U.S. poses as a preeminent and highly aggressive nuclear weapons power, with its military endorsing the concept of
“full-spectrum dominance” of the Earth and the heavens.

Activist Jacqueline Cabasso has been promoting nuclear weapons abolition for decades. She is the Executive Director of the Western States Legal Foundation (WSLF), a non-profit, public interest organization founded in 1982, which monitors and analyzes U.S. nuclear weapons programs and policies and related high-technology energy and weapons programs - with a focus on the national nuclear weapons laboratories. Cabasso co-founded the disarmament group Abolition 2000 in 1995 and is also active in the organization United for Peace and Justice. She won the MacBride Peace Prize last year. Read her acceptance speech. Cabasso is one of the authors of the 2007 report Nuclear Disorder or Cooperative Security? U.S. Weapons of Terror, the Global Proliferation Crisis, and Paths to Peace.

On today’s program, Dr. Caldicott and Cabasso discuss the present state of U.S. nuclear weapons stockpiles, nuclear weapons laboratories, disarmament treaties, and America’s first-strike nuclear-war-fighting policy. Cabasso says this is a time of great danger in the nuclear weapons arena, in the wake of the disastrous pro-nuclear George W. Bush administration and the tremendously disappointing legacy left by President Bill Clinton, but also a moment of opportunity. Dr. Caldicott places responsibility for the present destabilized nuclear weapons situation between the U.S. and Russia squarely on Clinton’s shoulders. She asks Cabasso for her perception of President Obama, who has stated that while he wants to lead world toward nuclear disarmament, as long as nuclear weapons exist, the U.S. will maintain a strong deterrent.

Cabasso and Dr. Caldicott cover the history of the U.S. nuclear weapons complex, particularly the enormous buildup since 1963. The benign-sounding Stockpile Stewardship and Management Program of today, Dr. Caldicott and Cabasso emphasize, is about maintaining an enormous U.S. nuclear arsenal to threaten other nations. The true work of the weapons labs, Dr. Caldicott says, is mass murder and global annihilation. Cabasso explains the rationale the labs now use to justify their nuclear weapons work.

Cabasso and Dr. Caldicott analyze the psychotic thinking around nuclear weapons that permeates how the U.S. government justifies its nuclear-warmongering policies in the media. As an example of such “rubbish,” as
Dr. Caldicott calls it, the 2008 article Pre-emptive Nuclear Strike a Key Option, NATO Told says senior NATO officers believe the West should use nuclear weapons preemptively, to prevent nuclear war!

Why the disarmament movement lost steam, and turned away from the nuclear issue at the ostensible end of the Cold War, is a critical part of today’s discussion. Dr. Caldicott says that the public, including organized religion, must become re-educated about the dangers of nuclear weapons, and become active in demanding disarmament, if the Earth is to survive.
She emphasizes how little most politicians and the general public understand about the destructive power of the atom. Highly recommended viewing to understand the effects of nuclear weapons: Steven Okazaki’s Emmy Award-winning 2007 documentary, White Light Black Rain, available on DVD. Watch a four-minute interview with Okazaki about his film.

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In this episode, Dr. Caldicott addresses the growing anti-vaccine movement in the United States and across the world, and the claim that vaccines used to immunize children against infectious diseases can lead to autism - a claim she and her two guests contend has been proven fraudulent.

First, Caldicott speaks with pediatrician Paul Offit, M.D., a national expert on vaccines who has written a book in response to the anti-vaccine movement titled Autism’s False Prophets: Bad Science, Risky Medicine and the Search for a Cure, published by Columbia University Press in 2008.
Dr. Offit, a Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, co invented a rotavirus vaccine. Dr. Caldicott and Dr. Offit dissect the theories espoused by the anti-vaccine movement, whose activists claim that thimerosal (mercury) in vaccines produces autism, a notion propounded
by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. in his article Deadly Immunity and in television interviews. Read the Newsweek article on Dr. Offit and the vaccine controversy, Stomping Through a Medical Minefield.

Over the course of their conversation, Dr. Offit and Dr. Caldicott cover how the immune system functions, the overuse of antibiotics, the history of vaccines, how Dr. Offitt’s rotavirus vaccine is helping prevent many deaths in the Third World, the concept of herd immunity, and other aspects of the vaccine issue in layman’s terms. In describing his perspective on the real causes of autism, Dr. Offit mentions an article by James Sutcliffe, Ph.D., Insights into the Pathogenesis of Autism.

Dr. Caldicott says she is deeply disturbed that more and more mothers are not immunizing their children, and points to the many terrible diseases that were eradicated because of vaccines. She says that most people now don’t realize what life was like before these immunizations were available.

In the second half of the show, Dr. Caldicott delves deeper into the actual role of vaccines and the immune system with Australian expert Robert Booy, Professor of Pediatrics and Children’s Health, National Center for Immunization Research and Surveillance, Children’s Hospital Westmead at the University of Sydney in Australia. Professor Booy explains the role of T cells in the human body, then proceeds to answer a series of basic questions about childhood vaccines that concerned parents – particularly women of childbearing age – want answered, such as: Are all vaccines necessary? Are the viruses in vaccines alive? What is the difference between the virus in the vaccine and the virus in the disease? and How do we know vaccines might not cause cancer years later? Dr. Booy, in concert with Dr. Caldicott, makes a convincing case that the generally good health the affluent First World takes for granted is in large part due to vaccines which prevent epidemics of disease. He describes recent instances where communities stopped immunizing their children, and outbreaks of formerly contained diseases suddenly reappeared.

Don’t miss this fascinating program!

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Robert Scheer is a respected journalist and author, and is currently the editor-in-chief of Truthdig.com, an award-winning political blog. In this interview with Dr. Caldicott, he discusses the political climate in the U.S. against the backdrop of economic crisis and a new White House administration. Scheer also talks about the military-industrial complex, which he has covered over the course of his career, and describes his latest book, The Pornography of Power: How Defense Hawks Hijacked 9/11 and Weakened America published by Twelve in 2008. Scheer is also the co-author of The Five Biggest Lies Bush Told Us About Iraq .

One of Scheer’s earlier books was With Enough Shovels: Reagan, Bush and Nuclear War (1983) which Dr. Caldicott used in her antinuclear lectures in the Reagan era, when hard-right conservatives were declaring that nuclear war is winnable and anyone could build their own fallout shelter to survive an atomic bombing. Read a chapter, It’s the Dirt That Does It, from that book.

Scheer and Dr. Caldicott refer to the documentary film The Fog of War, and explore whether U.S. war planners have any remorse for their deeds.
Dr. Caldicott asks Scheer about the pathology of neoconservative ideologue Richard Perle, aka “The Prince of Darkness,” who derailed the historic nuclear disarmament summit between Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev, and was a leading architect of the current Iraq War. Perle has taken $20 million from weapons maker Boeing. Perle cofounded the Project for the New American Century (also mentioned in last week’s program) whose 2000 document Rebuilding America’s Defenses calls for U.S. world domination and constant preemptive wars to achieve that domination.

Scheer recommends the writings of Graham Greene, including his book The Quiet American, to understand the imperial mindset which has dictated U.S. foreign policy for many years. Scheer says President George Washington warned against the dangers of empire and military aggression, and he recommends people read Washington’s farewell address wherein he said to always “use gentle means” and “avoid foreign machinations.”

Scheer says the U.S. military-industrial complex is now stronger than ever, cleverly working to ensure bloated defense budgets by touting how many jobs they provide in a troubled economy. Dr. Caldicott asks Scheer if President Obama will cut the military budget. In responding to that question, Scheer notes that without cutting weapons spending, none of Obama’s social programs will be funded.

Dr. Caldicott and Scheer analyze how weapons makers invent threats to justify trillions of dollars in recent U.S. military spending, which annually steals more than half of U.S. taxpayers’ money, and show off their weaponry at football games. Scheer refers to a recent article by Jeffrey Smith in the Washington Post about wasteful defense expenditures. Highly recommended: Dr. Caldicott’s 2004 book The New Nuclear Danger: George W. Bush’s Military-Industrial Complex, which has several chapters and appendices about major weapons makers and how they control the U.S. government.

Later in the program, Dr. Caldicott underscores how the threat of nuclear war persists. She ponders if the world has a future if America continues its addiction to weapons and killing. And Scheer describes how the weakened economy could destabilize world security.

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Jeff Cohen is a media critic and founding director of the Park Center for Independent Media at Ithaca College in New York. The Park Center has recently established a new award for journalists, this year presented to radio host Amy Goodman and blogger Glenn Greenwald.

Cohen has been a TV commentator on CNN, Fox News and MSNBC, and was senior producer of Phil Donahue’s primetime show until it was terminated three weeks before the Iraq invasion - for political reasons. Cohen founded the media watchdog group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR).

In this riveting and highly educational interview with Dr. Caldicott, Cohen describes the highly controlled, pro-war and pro-Bush media environment that existed in 2002 and 2003 leading up to and during the current Iraq conflict. Cohen and Dr. Caldicott explore why the mainstream U.S. media, including the highly influential New York Times, is so censored when it comes to war and peace issues, and who controls the voices that are heard.

Dr. Caldicott relates her experience as a guest on the Phil Donahue and Oprah Winfrey shows in 2002 and early 2003, when she wanted to warn the public about the casualties that a second Iraq War would produce, and the possibility the U.S. would use nuclear weapons. Oprah’s program featured two pro-Iraq-war male guests in the studio for the full hour, with Dr. Caldicott’s pre-recorded 30-minute interview cut down to a three-minute sound bite that together with a few other anti-war sound bites was denounced and derided by Oprah’s guests.

Cohen and Dr. Caldicott cover how the U.S. media fully orchestrated the Iraq war and subsequent occupation, and the influence of neoconservatives at the Project for The New American Century, which lasted from 1997 to 2006. The Project’s 2000 document “Rebuilding America’s Defenses,” a blueprint for the George W. Bush administration, calls for U.S. world domination and “full-spectrum dominance.” The report says a “new Pearl Harbor” or “gateway event” would create the perfect impetus for continuous U.S. wars of aggression. Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle were members or signatories of the Project. Neocons are now regrouping under the guise of a new organization.

Cohen says he “never drank the Obama Kool-Aid” and is skeptical of President Obama’s appointments, whom he says largely replicate the ideology of the George W. Bush administration. He recommends an article by Jeremy Scahill, “Obama’s Kettle of Hawks.” This interview also addresses the fate of American newspapers. Read about the 10 major daily newspapers that are most in jeopardy.

Cohen explains how independent journalists and internet bloggers have become major players in today’s multimedia landscape. Blogs, Cohen says, are the leading edge now of investigative journalism, and were able to report the false premises for the invasion of Iraq while mainstream media continued to perpetuate lies and propaganda. Read about the present influence of the Huffington Post. Cohen talks about a new non-profit business model that might help daily newspapers remain objective and financially sound. Read about the success of the non-profit Mother Jones magazine and Web site.

This episode concludes with a look at the influence and phenomenon of Rush Limbaugh, and why his ability to persuade gullible listeners and dictate right-wing policies may be in jeopardy.

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On this week’s program, Mary Olson, Southeast Regional Coordinator for the Nuclear Information and Resource Service (NIRS) joins
Dr. Caldicott to talk about the nuclear “renaissance” in the United States, including the push for the flawed Generation IV reactors. Energy companies have recently submitted applications to build 23 new nuclear power plants in the South alone (including Texas).

For 30 years, NIRS has been the national information and networking center for citizens concerned about nuclear power, radioactive waste, radiation and sustainable energy issues. Olson has spoken at the United Nations on nuclear power and climate three times.

In this interview, she explains how she continues to educate people about the risks of nuclear power, and recounts her own experience with radiation poisoning. Dr. Caldicott’s book Nuclear Madness: What You Can Do, Olson says, guided her to understand the nature of radiation and find resources for her own recovery.

Olson and Dr. Caldicott discuss many vitally important aspects of nuclear power in this episode. Ninety-five percent of the radioactivity that is a danger to the planet comes from making electricity, Olson reports, with nuclear power plants putting off the equivalent of six atomic bombs’ worth of heat a day, around the clock. Globally, the dispersal of radioactive elements means these elements continue to increase their concentrations in all the seeds that form the chain of life, including crops for food. Olson points to the late Dr. John Gofman’s contention that 3 to 5 million fatal cancers may result from the Chernobyl accident.

Olson speaks about the nuclear industry’s deception or “nukespeak” about various types of reactors, including their present advocacy of supposedly safer breeder reactors cooled by liquid sodium, which if built would in fact create even more dangerous radiation (and potential for cancer) than existing reactors cooled by water. She refers to John G. Fuller’s book We Almost Lost Detroit about the partial-fuel meltdown of the Fermi 1 reactor, a liquid-metal fast-breeder reactor 30 miles from Detroit. Olson also recounts the recent discovery of a shockingly high cancer incidence near the Summer reactor in South Carolina.

Believing that nuclear power is a solution to global warming, Olson analogizes, is like an addict taking an “oil-addiction IV” out of one elbow and sticking a “nuclear-power-fantasy IV” into another elbow.

Renewable energy technologies like solar and wind are far more cost-efficient and must be pursued to save the planet, Olson says. Like Dr. Caldicott, she strongly recommends everyone read Carbon-Free and Nuclear-Free: A Roadmap for U.S. Energy Policy (whose author Arjun Makhijani, Ph.D. has twice appeared on this program) which can be downloaded for free on-line.

For more information, read Olson’s article Confronting a False Myth of Nuclear Power: Nuclear Power Expansion is Not a Remedy for Climate Change. Also read the NIRS reports Nuclear Power: No Solution to Climate Change and Out of Control - On Purpose: DOE’s Dispersal of Radioactive Waste into Landfills and Consumer Products. But hearing today’s program is a must!

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Can the United States ever have national health insurance for all citizens when private insurance companies have so much power? Today’s guest is Oliver Fein, M.D., a general internist with experience in health policy and a commitment to access to care for vulnerable populations, health system reform and global health education.
Dr. Fein is currently Professor of Clinical Medicine and Clinical Public Health and Associate Dean at the Weill Cornell Medical College in New York City.

In this interview, Dr. Fein talks about his role as President of Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP), and outlines their proposal for a “one-payer” system for health care in the United States. Dr. Caldicott contrasts the state of health care in the U.S. with the successful national health care program offered by the Australian government.

Read Dr. Fein’s report on his attendance at the March 5 White House Health Care Summit, where President Obama spoke, and on House Resolution (H.R.) 676, The United States National Health Insurance Act, here. H.R. 676 has over 90 sponsors in the House. A group supporting the measure, The Citizens Alliance for National Health Insurance, has more information on their Web site.

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In the first part of this episode,
Dr. Caldicott speaks with Arjun Makhijani, Ph.D., who provides an
update about President Obama’s energy and climate program, and the funding for renewable energy in the recently passed economic stimulus package. Dr. Makhijani is the President of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research (IEER). His publication Carbon-Free and Nuclear-Free: A Roadmap for U.S. Energy Policy has been downloaded
from the www.ieer.org website a million times, and is having an impact on state governments and politicians around the country.

Dr. Makhijani explores the possibilities for greater energy efficiency offered by smart meters and other intelligent approaches to saving and storing electricity, President Obama’s plan to reduce carbon emissions by 80% below 1990 levels by the middle of the century, and the dangerous pitfalls of “cap-and-trade” programs that do virtually nothing to stop global warming. IEER is now studying how a state such as Utah can move to 100% renewable electricity, and writing model legislation for how other states can follow this path. More information about IEER’s trendsetting work can be found at www.ieer.org and www.carbonfreenuclearfree.org.

In part two of the program, Dr. Caldicott chats with Paul Collins, an Australian historian, writer and broadcaster whose book Burn: The Epic Story of Wildfire in Australia (2006) gives a popular history of bushfire in Australia. In the wake of the devastating fires that swept through the southern Australian state of Victoria in February 2009, he explains the behavior of fire and the new conditions we now face due to the consequences of global warming and climate change. He provides some historical background about how British settlers began to upset the equilibrium in the country by intensely destroying natural vegetation. Moving to the present, the February fires have just added millions of tons of CO2 to the atmosphere. Dr. Caldicott and Collins agree that politicians almost never make connections between the stronger wildfires and extreme weather the world is seeing now, and global warming, because of their limited knowledge of science. Collins mentions the work of American geologian, Thomas Berry, and the need for people to become reconnected to the earth if we are to survive. In an earlier program from 2008, Dr. Caldicott interviewed Collins about religion’s role in saving the planet.

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This week, Craig Eisendrath, Ph.D., author and former diplomat in the U.S. Department of State, joins Dr. Caldicott to discuss the weaponization of space.

Dr. Caldicott and Dr. Eisendrath collaborated on the book War in Heaven: The Arms Race in Outer Space, published by The New Press in 2007.

Co-founder of the U.S. Constitution Center, where he was a senior fellow for International Policy, Dr. Eisendrath co-wrote the 1966 United Nations Outer Space Treaty, and has been a strong voice against the militarization of space for many years since. He is currently Chairman of the Project for Nuclear Awareness.

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What influence do pharmaceutical companies have on medical professionals and the health industry in the U.S.?

This is the topic addressed by author
Dr. Marcia Angell in her book The Truth About the Drug Companies: How They Deceive Us and What to Do About It, published in 2004 by Random House.

Dr. Angell is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine, Division of Medical Ethics, at Harvard Medical School. In this important interview with Dr. Caldicott, she explains how drug companies propagate the myth that they are “educational institutions,” and explores the topics of medical ethics, health policy and the relationship between industry and academic medicine.

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Jonathan Schell has been writing and speaking out about the global nuclear situation for more than 20 years. Schell is the Harold Willens Peace Fellow at the Nation Institute, and the Peace and Disarmament Correspondent for The Nation magazine. His bestselling reflective work on the nuclear question titled The Fate of the Earth (1982) was hailed by The New York Times as “an event of profound historical moment.”

In this interview, he discusses with Dr. Caldicott the five areas he believes the new U.S. administration needs to focus on: the economic crisis; the shortage of natural resources; the spread of nuclear arms; the ecological threat of global warming; the failure of the American bid for global empire and the consequent decline of American influence abroad.

While Schell welcomes President Obama’s plan to negotiate with Russia about reducing their nuclear arsenals from three to six thousand down to just one thousand, he labels this goal as a ‘modest reduction in flat out insanity’. [The detonation of under 1,000 nuclear warheads would likely induce nuclear winter and the end of all life on earth.]

Schell’s most recent book is The Seventh Decade: The New Shape of the Nuclear Danger (2007). The New York Times says Schell’s book reveals how “[t]he prospect of serial proliferation could be returning us to an era of nuclear dread, much like the years of the cold war.” He is also the author of The Unfinished Twentieth Century (2001).

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Australian author Antony Loewenstein joins Dr. Caldicott on the program to discuss the delicate situation in the Middle East, and the volatile relationship between Israelis and Palestinians. His book My Israel Question was published by Melbourne University Press in 2006. Loewenstein mentions the January 26 segment of CBS’s 60 Minutes program (“Is Peace Out of Reach?”) about the two-state issue.

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In this episode of If You Love This Planet, Dr. Caldicott speaks with two guests, Frank Rich, author and New York Times columnist; and Australian politician and environmental activist, Senator Bob Brown.

Frank Rich’s latest book is titled The Greatest Story Ever Sold: The Decline and Fall of Truth From 9/11 to Katrina, published by Penguin Press in 2006. Dr. Caldicott introduces him as one of the few mainstream media writers in the U.S. who were willing to challenge George W. Bush’s policies from the beginning. In this interview, Rich reflects on the tumultuous eight years of Bush, whose administration manipulated the public through its clever and “theatrical” use of the major media. The 2003 Iraq War, which may have killed 1,000,000 civilians, is the most egregious example of how the media colluded to support the Bush White House.

Dr. Caldicott asks Rich about the influence of the Project for the New American Century (founded in 1997), whose members include Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld. [In 2000, the Project released Rebuilding America’s Defenses, a document which calls for the U.S. to dominate the world militarily and which included Iraq in an “axis of evil” while calling for “regime change” in that country. In describing how the U.S. might achieve military omnipotence, the blueprint states that such a "process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event – like a new Pearl Harbor."] Rich also comments on the major problems that need to be addressed by the Obama administration.

Senator Bob Brown of Tasmania is the current leader of the Australian Greens, the country’s third largest political party. Brown, a medical doctor like Dr. Caldicott, has been warning about the effects of global warming for years. He explores with Dr. Caldicott the damaging practices still underway such as forest logging, and how we can turn our global environmental habits around for the sake of a safe future. Australia is a major coal producer, and coal is a leading source of greenhouse gases. Australia also provides timber for the paper industry (in Japan and elsewhere), and this program addresses the critical role of trees in abating global warming worldwide. Brown and
Dr. Caldicott also discuss plastic (Brown says that there are on average 40,000 pieces of plastic per square mile on earth) and how imperative it is to elect environmentally conscious politicians.

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Bob Herbert is an Op-Ed columnist for The New York Times, writing twice-weekly about politics, urban affairs and social trends. In this interview with
Dr. Caldicott, Herbert discusses the changing political landscape in the United States, and postulates about the direction the new administration will take under President Obama. Herbert is an author, university lecturer and award-winning journalist who has been reporting on American politics and society since the 1970’s. His book Promises Betrayed: Waking Up from the American Dream was published by Times Books in 2005.

Topics covered include the rise of Obama from relative obscurity,
Dr. Caldicott and Herbert’s shared concern about Obama’s stated intention to double the military presence in Afghanistan; the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; U.S. relations with Iran; Hillary Clinton and her role in the State Department; the greed of health insurance and drug companies, who have impeded national health care in the U.S., where 50 million people have no health coverage; Herbert’s contention that the Obama administration will not cut Pentagon funding; and Herbert’s concern that the social safety net in the U.S. might be further shredded in the future by conservatives who use the economy as an excuse for cutbacks.

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Colette Livermore, M.D., joined Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity, a religious organization within the Catholic Church, at the age of eighteen. After serving for eleven years, Livermore left the order, and obtained her medical degree from the University of Queensland. She is currently a general practitioner living in Australia. Her memoir, Hope Endures, was just published, and has been described as a “compelling chronicle of idealistic determination, rigid discipline, and shattering disillusionment.”

In this interview with Dr. Caldicott, Dr. Livermore talks about her experiences working with Mother Teresa, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, and the events that eventually led her to leave the order and take her life in a different direction. Along her journey, before she became a doctor, Dr. Livermore worked with Aborigines in Australia, with the people of East Timor, in a “garbage mountain” slum in Manila, and at Mother Theresa’s Home for the Dying in Calcutta. Those in the First World, Dr. Caldicott notes, do not appreciate how the Third World is often forced to live, in extreme poverty, sick with curable diseases, malnourished and facing starvation.

Dr. Livermore relates many challenging experiences in her training as a nun, working in the sometimes “medieval” world of Mother Theresa, which made her question the expectation of blind obedience and other extreme Catholic dogma that Mother Theresa, who was born in 1910, believed in. She believes that Mother Theresa was a good person with strong integrity who loved the poor, but that she was following the wrong map. Dr. Livermore’s instincts as a Good Samaritan were often thwarted by the order, and she was left to question her inner convictions. Her story about fighting to save a sick little boy is particularly enlightening.

In her concern about the harsh beliefs she encountered in the order, Dr. Livermore paraphrases Nobel Prize-winning physicist Professor Steven Weinberg, who stated that “Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion”.

Dr. Livermore and Dr. Caldicott question whether a belief system that the poor are meant to suffer is a healthy perspective. Dr. Livermore learned that what is most important is obeying her own principles.

David T. Suzuki, Ph.D, co-founder of the David Suzuki Foundation, is an award-winning geneticist, environmentalist and broadcaster. He has hosted the Canadian television show, The Nature of Things, which airs in 50 countries, since 1979. He is well known in Canada and Australia, but not in the United States.

Dr. Suzuki has received consistently high acclaim for his 30 years of award-winning work in broadcasting, explaining the complexities of science in a compelling, easily understood way. In this fascinating interview with Dr. Caldicott, he talks about the relationship between human beings and planet earth, and urges policy makers and members of society to become more scientifically literate so we can make informed decisions and leave a safer and healthier environment to future generations.

Dr. Suzuki and Dr. Caldicott cover many topics, including the preposterous plans to build four nuclear reactors on an earthquake fault in Canada to extract tar-sand oil as a source of energy for California; the mental barriers which prevent leaders and the public from taking action on global warming (skeptics said Denmark could get only 2% of its energy from wind, but they are now up to 19.7% and on the road to 50%); deforestation and the urgent need to preserve all old-growth forests to reduce global warming; and the many exciting breakthroughs and new technologies that more forward-thinking countries like Germany are introducing to become sustainable. Science, Dr. Suzuki stresses, is the most powerful force affecting our future.

Dr. Suzuki relates how corporate think tanks began to proselytize the public to worship at the altar of consumption in the middle of the 20th Century, which has led to a notion that the world has infinite resources. To survive, humanity must use its unique gift of foresight and planning for the future for saving the planet, not more growth, development and consumption.

He recommends listeners watch a speech on environmentalism given by his daughter, Severn Suzuki, in 1992, when she was 12, which is available on YouTube.

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Dr. Caldicott joined Dr. Arjun Makhijani, President of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research (IEER), at a public lecture in Washington, D.C. in October 2008. IEER is the sponsor of If You Love This Planet.

Dr. Makhijani has completed a decisive study called Carbon-Free and Nuclear-Free: A Roadmap for U.S. Energy Policy, and in this lecture he and Dr. Caldicott address the folly of nuclear power, and discuss the bright future of renewable energy sources.

In the first part of the program, Dr. Caldicott details the dangerous misconceptions the nuclear power industry spreads about nuclear energy, and why it can never be a safe and sane solution to global warming. Nuclear reactors, she notes, emit radiation every day into the air and water, and create a major cancer risk for neighboring communities. She mentions a recent report about people living near 16 old reactors in Germany, showing a statistically higher rate of cancer. Two short summaries of the “Epidemiological Study of Childhood Cancer in the Vicinity of Nuclear Power Plants” (the KiKK Study), commissioned by the German Federal Office for Radiation Protection, can be found here and here.

Dr. Caldicott talks about how radioactive isotopes released by nuclear power plants are synergistic with toxic chemicals, and become exponentially damaging. In other words, tritium from a nuclear power plant in combination with a substance like carbon tetrachloride, a dry cleaning fluid, will become ten-fold more destructive to humans, animals and plants.

Dr. Caldicott notes that the Union of Concerned Scientists has done a study ["Impacts of a Terrorist Attack at Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant"] that finds that 100,000 people would be immediately irradiated by a meltdown in a major metropolitan area. A nuclear accident near New York City, at the Indian Point facility, would mean those in Manhattan and other boroughs would be trapped in gridlock trying to escape, and millions of people would be irradiated. She describes the effects of acute radiation illness, and how the two reactors at Indian Point were actually targeted by the 9/11 terrorists.

Dr. Caldicott underlines how important a green-energy transition is now, and how it could help resolve the present economic downturn in the U.S. Solar-powered plug-in hybrid cars are one of many necessary solutions that must be implemented [see illustration above]. Read Using Solar Roofs To Power Hybrids.

Recommended reading: Dr. Caldicott’s books Nuclear Answer Is Not the Answer and Nuclear Madness.

Dr. Makhijani then joins the discussion with Dr. Caldicott and the audience, and illuminates the findings of Carbon-Free and Nuclear-Free about how the U.S. can meet all its energy needs by 2050 with solar, wind and other renewable energy sources, and without nuclear, coal or oil. Nuclear power, he says, has been glamorized, but it is really just “sticking radioactive rods in a pot of water to boil it. It’s better to use the nuclear reactor in the sky - called the sun.”

The question-and-answer session covers such topics as Chernobyl, weapons in space, the U.S./Indian nuclear arrangement, and depleted uranium (DU). Because of DU weapons the U.S. used in 1991 and 2003, there is a 700% cancer increase in parts of Iraq, and the incidence of severe congenital malformations has also gone up 700%. Dr. Caldicott has stated in many lectures that women in Iraq are now afraid to give birth. To see graphic photos of birth defects induced by the DU the U.S. has now used in several invasions, go to Google Images and search for “depleted uranium” which brings up several pages of pictures. Dr. Caldicott refers the audience to a study on DU from the New York Academy of Medicine.

Dr. Makhijani answers a question about electric car batteries, and mentions capacitor technology. Read Cars of the Future, Will Batteries Be Required?

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In October 2008, Dr. Caldicott traveled to Oak Ridge, Tennessee as a guest of the Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance (OREPA) which educates the public about nuclear weapons through its ongoing campaign Stop The Bombs. Reverend Ralph Hutchison, Director of OREPA, took Dr. Caldicott to the Y12 National Security Complex at Oak Ridge, which was involved in developing the nuclear weapons that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of the Second World War. Currently operated by B&W (Babcock and Wilcox) Y12, the plant flaunts its vital role in the Department of Energy’s Nuclear Weapons Complex. According to the USA Today story Nuclear Weapons Decision Awaits Obama, the incoming administration’s assessment of its nuclear weapons strategy next year will determine whether Oak Ridge focuses on maintaining existing warheads and storing uranium from weapons pulled out of a shrinking arsenal — or whether it becomes a cornerstone in a new production enterprise. The Bush administration over eight years has laid the groundwork for creating another huge U.S. nuclear weapons (plus space weapons) stockpile, as outlined in Dr. Caldicott’s 2004 book The New Nuclear Danger: George W. Bush’s Military-Industrial Complex.

Reverend Hutchison, a Presbyterian minister, has lived on the doorstep of the Oak Ridge facility for many years, and he joins Dr. Caldicott on If You Love This Planet to explain the capabilities - and dangers - of the Y12 plant. This complex was the largest building in the world in the 1950’s, and at the height of earlier U.S. nuclear bomb production, used one-fifth of all electricity in the country.

The bulk of this program focuses on the immense and terrifying quantities of toxic waste, radioactive and otherwise, that is and was burned, dumped, buried or otherwise emitted in the surrounding area, and on the contemptible plans to recycle nuclear waste around the world. Learn about the most radioactive lake in the U.S., if not the world, and the 75,000 barrels of low-level radioactive waste at the plant, many of which are leaking. Even Dr. Caldicott is horrified to learn about the extent of pollution at Oak Ridge, which she says takes my breath away. Dr. Caldicott and Reverend Hutchison discuss the report detailing the contamination, A Citizens Guide to Oak Ridge (1992) which can be purchased for $5.00 through the Foundation for Global Sustainability. Dr. Caldicott refers to it as one of the more profound documents I have ever read. A short excerpt from a promotional DVD, This is Y12, produced by the Y12 Complex, is played during the interview.

Strongly recommended and relevant viewing: the Emmy-Award-winning 2007 documentary White Light, Black Rain: The Destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which can be purchased here.

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In this interview, Dr. Caldicott speaks with Richard Fuller, President and Founder of Blacksmith Institute, about the most significant areas of the world suffering from all forms of pollution, “the Top 10 of the Toxic 20.” One billion people are affected by pollution in the Third World and in some heavily polluted areas, 75% of children are born with birth defects. Based in New York, Blacksmith works in locations throughout the developing world where human health is most affected by pollution, and implements strategies to help local institutions address the problem.

In October 2008, Blacksmith, in collaboration with Green Cross Switzerland, released a report, The World’s Worst Pollution Problems. According to www.worstpolluted.org, “The Top Ten list includes commonly discussed pollution problems like urban air pollution as well as more overlooked threats like car battery recycling. The problems included in the report have a significant impact on human health worldwide and result in death, persistent illness, and neurological impairment for millions of people, particularly children. According to the report, many of these deaths and related illnesses could be avoided with affordable and effective interventions.”

Fuller and Dr. Caldicott cover air pollution (Fuller mentions that nearly everyone he encountered on the streets of Beijing this summer had a cough), surface and ground water contamination, sewage, industrial toxins, radioactive waste, indoor air pollution, mercury, lead, and contamination from factories making chemical warfare agents, among other concerns. The program also explores what is being done to reduce toxics, such as China’s major plan to deal with surface water pollution.

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In October 2008, Dr. Caldicott gave a lecture to medical colleagues (grand rounds) in Calgary. The lecture was part of her annual speaking tour in North America. During the speech, Dr. Caldicott describes in detail the medical and environmental risks associated with the complex process of the nuclear fuel cycle, and climate change. Without a knowledge of the facts presented in her lecture, she says, the heavily funded nuclear industry will proceed apace, and the world will see epidemics of malignancies by the hundreds of thousands in children and adults. And global warming left unchecked will present enormous challenges to public health, creating billions of ecological refugees and an increase in tropical diseases. Global warming may be greatly exacerbated by permafrost melting and an ocean phenomenon called the albedo flip, which she explains in the presentation. Neither of these threats were noted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in their reports on global warming. Nuclear power, Dr. Caldicott declares, is not the solution to global warming, and in fact contributes to both global warming and ozone depletion. Dr. Caldicott refers the attending doctors to a map of Europe showing the enormous reach of radiation from the Chernobyl disaster.

As a prescription for survival, Dr. Caldicott says the U.S. and the world must follow the explicit guidelines in Carbon-Free and Nuclear-Free: A Roadmap for U.S. Energy Policy [also see our August 4 episode]. Medical professionals, and the general public, must now practice the ultimate form or preventive medicine in speaking out against nuclear power and nuclear weapons, and demanding action on global warming.

Dr. Caldicott concludes her presentation by talking about the continuing risk of nuclear war between the U.S. and Russia, and the Dead Hand device that would launch all of Russia’s missiles (toward the U.S. and elsewhere) if the Russian leadership were killed. Read the Wired story, Soviet Doomsday Device Still Armed and Ready. Both the U.S. and Russia have embarked on building a large new generation of nuclear weapons, and the U.S. is arming space to dominate the planet. She outlines the enormous killing capacity of just one nuclear-armed Trident submarine. See the Scientists for Global Responsibility article, Could one Trident submarine cause nuclear winter? and the CBS News/60 Minutes story, The Deadliest Weapon Ever: Navy Creates Weapon Against Terror.

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