DR. HELEN CALDICOTT

DR. HELEN CALDICOTT

 

(1938 - )

 

Dr. Helen Caldicott is one of the world's leading anti-nuclear activists.

 

With persistence and passion she has roused people around the planet to reject nuclear weapons.

 

Helen Mary Broinowski was born in Melbourne in 1938, the eldest of three children.

 

Her father was a factory manager and her mother an interior designer. They considered ideas, books and music very important.

 

At school, Helen found the work easy, but making friends was difficult.

 

"I was a loner. I think being alone as a child made me very independent and that I could handle any situation that arose. "

 

Helen's hero was 'Robin Hood' because he took from the rich and gave to the poor. Helen wanted to help people too, so when she was eleven years old, she made an important decision.

 

"I remember climbing into bed with mum one Sunday morning and saying to her I'm going to be a doctor. She said:' why?' I said - I can help more people that way."

 

That's exactly what she did. Helen was one of only a few women accepted into the Medical School at the University of Adelaide in 1956.

 

After graduating Helen married William Caldicott a fellow doctor and they had three children.

 

In 1966, the family moved to the United States to work at the Harvard Medical Centre.

 

Here Helen treated children with cystic fibrosis - a life-threatening disease of the lungs and digestive system.

 

It was during this time, Helen realised how precious and special life was.

 

When they returned to Adelaide, three years later, Helen read a book which was a turning point in her life.

 

"I read The Female Eunich by Germaine Greer - a wonderful Australian woman. She said look you don't have to do what people tell you to do. You don't have to be what society says, you can be yourself. It gave me such a sense of power."

 

Helen used that power when she found out that France had been exploding nuclear weapons over the Pacific Atoll of Mururoa. She became very angry.

 

"You see I'd always been scared of nuclear weapons. When I was an adolescent I read a book by Neville Shute, an Australian, called 'On the Beach' about a nuclear war that occurred by accident and everyone died in the northern hemisphere. When I studied medicine I learnt what radiation does to genes. It changes the genes so you can get cancer or babies will be born deformed. After I read the Female Eunuch, a document was leaked to be by the Adelaide Water Supply to show that the water we had in Adelaide, the rain, was really radioactive and the reason was the French were blowing up bombs in the Pacific."

 

Helen wrote a letter to the local paper to expose the dangers of testing and it was published. Soon Helen was on television and radio and speaking at public meetings.

 

"I led the movement against the French tests in Australia and she was forced to test underground. You can do anything you want and achieve anything in the world. Not to get yourself rich but to change policy. And then I went to America. I thought well if I can change policy in Australia I'll go and see the unions in America and I'll get them to shut down the nuclear power plants in America."

 

For the next ten years Helen spear-headed a massive anti-nuclear awareness campaign.

 

"What happened was I was working in America and the US is a global power. It was one of the super powers. I was invited to go to Europe and speak in many European countries, England, Ireland, Scotland, and Japan about the medical effects of nuclear war and I started groups of doctors all over the world so that's how it became global."

 

Thirty thousand doctors world-wide formed 'The Physicians for Social Responsibility'.

 

"What we did was we actually led a revolution of thinking in America."

 

People all over the world began to demand an end to the huge nuclear arms buildup and the threat of war.

 

Slowly the world began to change until finally in 1990 the cold war ended and with it the threat of nuclear war.

 

"That's the miracle of the century, that Russia and America are friends now. That we're not going to blow up the earth, having seen that happen in my lifetime, having been part of that process, anything can happen."

 

Helen received dozens of awards- for integrity, peacemaking and humanitarian work, as well as eighteen honorary university degrees.

 

"What I feel so strongly about - if you decide to do something you can do it. You can change the world and I did help change the world."