141st APHA Annual Meeting

In This section

294583
New developments in addressing the threat of nuclear weapons

Monday, November 4, 2013 : 1:06 PM - 1:24 PM

Ira Helfand, MD , Physicians for Social Responsibility, Leeds, MA
Recent research studies have shown that even a very limited nuclear war involving less than 0.5% of the world's nuclear arsenals would cause catastrophic worldwide climate disruption, which would put more than one billion people at risk in a global nuclear famine. These studies have motivated a broad new movement for nuclear abolition, involving civil society and a growing coalition of non-nuclear weapons states. This movement is demanding that an understanding of the humanitarian/public health consequences of nuclear war inform future policy discussion about nuclear weapons. Explicitly criticizing the failure of the nuclear weapons states to move towards the elimination of their nuclear arsenals, it seeks to build a broad international campaign to pressure them to meet their responsibilities under Article VI of the Non Proliferation Treaty to negotiate the abolition of all nuclear weapons.

Learning Areas:
Public health or related public policy

Learning Objectives:
Describe new developments in addressing the threat of nuclear weapons, including the threat of catastrophic worldwide climate disruption and resultant global nuclear famine. Describe the roles of public health workers in the abolition of nuclear weapons.

Keywords: Human Rights, War

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I have published on this topic in the British Medical Journal, the New England Journal of Medicine, and Medicine and Global Survival. I presented at the Oslo conference on the Humanitarian Consequences of Nuclear War attended by government delegations from 126 countries in March of this year. I am Co-President of the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.