International Conferences

Nuclear Weapons: The Final Pandemic
Preventing Proliferation and Achieving Abolition
October 3-4, 2007
London, England

CONFERENCE OVERVIEW | PROGRAM | MAPS & EVENTS | PRESENTATIONS

PROGRAM


WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 3, 2007

9-10:45 AM
Opening Plenary - Medicine and Nuclear War

The threat of nuclear weapons as the medical and public health imperative in the 21st century. Since the first use of nuclear weapons in 1945, practitioners, organizations and journals in medicine, public health, nursing, social work, and related fields have been active in efforts to prevent proliferation and to achieve abolition of nuclear weapons. One element of this work has been the preparation of an IPPNW monograph on Medicine and Nuclear War, which summarized the history of the efforts by those in medicine to prevent proliferation and to achieve abolition of nuclear weapons. The monograph details current efforts, such as the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) and the work to convince the nations that possess nuclear weapons to strengthen the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and to negotiate a Nuclear Weapons Convention (NWC). In 1984, and again in 1987, the WHO concluded that "the only approach to the treatment of the health effects of nuclear warfare is primary prevention, that is, the prevention of nuclear war." We reaffirm that conclusion here, along with the proclamation in the WHO Constitution that "the health of all peoples is fundamental to the attainment of peace and security and is dependent upon the fullest cooperation of individuals and States."

Moderators:
Gunnar Westberg, MD; Co-President, IPPNW
Steve Mannion; President, Catastrophes and Conflict Forum, Royal Society of Medicine

Greeting:
Message from Ken Livingstone, Mayor of London

Speakers:
1. Masao Tomonaga, MD; Professor of Hematology, Nagasaki University Hospital; Nagasaki survivor, Member of the Board, IPPNW
"Human consequences of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombs after 62 years: The lifelong health effects of radiation and the psychological threat
2. Prof. Sir E. D. Williams; Emeritus Professor of Histopathology, University of Cambridge
"The need for continuing scientific study of radiaion effects"
3. Victor W. Sidel,MD, Distinguished University Professor of Social Medicine, Montefiore Medical Center and Albert Einstein College of Medicine; Former Co-President, IPPNW
"Medicine and nuclear war"

COFFEE BREAK

11:00 AM - 12:30 PM
Plenary - Climate Effects of Regional Nuclear War

The probability of nuclear conflict may expand greatly due to nuclear proliferation. Low-yield weapons, which new nuclear powers are likely to construct, can produce 100 times as many fatalities and 100 times as much smoke from fires per kiloton yield as previously estimated in analyses for full scale nuclear wars using high-yield weapons, if the small weapons are targeted at city centers. Nuclear powers with arsenals of 50 Hiroshima-sized weapons are capable of inflicting casualties rivaling those of World War Two. Smoke from urban firestorms in a regional war would rise deep into the stratosphere and might induce significant climatic anomalies on global scales, including large global ozone losses. Significant cooling and reductions of precipitation lasting years would impact the global food supply. While it is not possible to estimate the precise extent of the global famine that would follow a regional nuclear war, it seems reasonable to postulate a total global death toll in the range of one billion from starvation alone. Famine on this scale would also lead to major epidemics of infectious diseases, and would create immense potential for war and civil conflict. Even the regional 100-bomb scenario, using less than 0.03% of the current nuclear arsenal, would produce climate change unprecedented in recorded human history.

Moderator:
Prof. Sir Andy Haines, MD; Dean, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine

Speakers:
1. Owen B. Toon, PhD; Department of Atmospheric & Oceanic Science, University of Colorado at Boulder
"Consequences of regional-scale nuclear conflicts:understanding and avoiding nuclear catastrophe
2. Alan Robock, PhD; Department of Environmental Sciences, Rutgers University
"Climatic consequences of nuclear conflict-nuclear winter is still a threat"
3. Ira Helfand, MD; IPPNW
"Global medical consequences of regional nuclear conflicts"

12:30 PM -2:00 PM
LUNCH

Exhibits
Preview: The Nuclear Dilemma
Major books, publications, and campaign materials produced over the past 30 years (or more) on the medical implications of nuclear war.

2:00 PM - 2:30 PM
Using Weapons Grade Uranium to Produce Medical Isotopes - An Avoidable Terrorist Danger

Moderator:
Bill Williams, MBBS; Medical Association for the Prevention of War, Australia

Speaker:
Martin Kalinowski, Director, Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker Center for Science and Peace Research (ZNF), Germany
"The dangers associated with the use of highly enriched uranium in medical isotope production"

2:30 PM - 4:00 PM
Plenary - Radiation and Health

Studies of survivors of the nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki provide the primary basis for estimating cancer risks from exposure to low-level penetrating ionizing radiation. Yet, ever since childhood cancer risks from in utero exposure to diagnostic x-rays were recognized a half-century ago, evidence of unexpected risks not predicted from studies of A-bomb survivors has accumulated. Studies of workers from several countries now provide evidence of dose-response relationships between radiation and cancer among workers whose recorded doses do not exceed occupational limits. In recent years, there have been two main sources of information about radiation's effects. First the new radiation phenomena of genomic instability, bystander effects and minisatellite mutations and, second, the new evidence from Chernobyl. The current consensus is that radiation exposures may result in both DNA effects and untargetted effects. In 2006, the 20th anniversary of the Chernobyl accident, a number of reports were published containing a wealth of new evidence on health effects resulting from Chernobyl exposures.

Moderators:
David Rush, MD; Emeritus Professor of Nutrition, Community Health (epidemiology), and Pediatrics, Tufts University

Speakers:
1. Steve Wing, PhD; Associate Professor of Epidemiology, University of North Carolina School of Public Health
"Changing views of the biological effects of low-level ionizing radiation"
2. Dr. Ian Fairlie; Independent consultant on radiation and health
"New understandings of radiation effects, and new evidence from Chernobyl"

Respondents:
1. Martin Tondel; Department fo Molecular and Clinical Medicine, Faculty of Health Sciences. Linköping University, Sweden
2.Prof. Sir E. D. Williams; Emeritus Professor of Histopathology, University of Cambridge

TEA BREAK

4:30 PM - 6:00 PM
Plenary - Destruction Before Detonation

Part 1: The Legacy of Nuclear Testing

Nuclear test sites in Australia, Russia, the US, and elsewhere in the world, while they have been inactive for more than a decade, continue to pose health and environmental threats about which the public is largely unaware.

Moderator:
Ime John, MD, PhD Candidate, Division of Social Medicine, Karolinska Institute, Stockholm; Co-President, IPPNW

Speakers:
Tilman Ruff, MD; President, Medical Association for the Prevention of War, Australia
"The legacy of nuclear testing"

Part 2: The Human Impacts of Uranium Mining

Uranium mining and milling, whether to supply the fuel for nuclear weapons or for nuclear power reactors, have had a devastating impact on the health of mine workers and their families, even without the explosion of a single nuclear weapon. New uranium mining operations throughout the world, including Australia, India, and the US, will impose unwanted - and unnecessary - health burdens on a whole new generation of indigenous communities.

Speakers:
1. Satyajit Kumar Singh, MBBS; MS; MCh (Urology); Vice President, Indian Doctors for Peace and Development
2. Shakeel Ur Rahman, National Secretary, Indian Doctors for Peace and Develpment
"Health status of indigenous people around Jadugoda uranium mines in India"
3. Bill Williams, MBBS; Medical Association for the Prevention of War, Australia
"Health implications of Australia's uranium rush"


THURSDAY, OCTOBER 4, 2007

Conference participants will participate in six breakout sessions - three in the morning and three in the afternoon, running concurrently - to develop specific work plans for carrying forward the research, education, and advocacy work of IPPNW and the international physicians movement.

Each group will be tasked with conducting an in-depth discussion of the needs and capacities of the medical movement for nuclear abolition related to the assigned topic, and will make recommendations for carrying high priority tasks forward in the context of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN).

Morning Session 9-11:30AM

1) Climate effects of low-yield nuclear war: Setting a research and education agenda

2) The psychosocial dimnsions of nuclearism

3) Vertical and horizontal proliferation -- the growing threat to health and life from new nuclear weaons, new nuclear infrastructures, and new nuclear policies

Afternoon Session 1-3:30PM

4) Radiation and Health -- the legacy of nuclear testing and the public health hazards of continued reliance on nuclear weapons: Scientific data as a basis for activism

5) The nuclear weapnos-nuclear energy link: Can one be abolished without the other?

6) Nuclear terror: Exploring options for prevention and preparedness

4:00 PM - 5:30PM
Working Group Reports

Closing Plenary - How to Eliminate the Nuclear Threat; Rewards of Success, Consequences of Failure

The world has been given a false choice in confronting the nuclear threat: either live with a growing number of nuclear weapon states, or prevent new states from acquiring nuclear weapons by any means necessary, while allowing the existing nuclear powers to retain their arsenals. Yet the chances that nuclear weapons will be used only increase with the number of owners, and the lessons of pre-emptive war in Iraq and the predictable outcomes of similar attacks against Iran, the DPRK, or elsewhere have made it clear that there are no military solutions to the problem of proliferation. There is a third option, however, that has been given short shrift in the policy debate: the abolition of nuclear weapons, which are incompatible with human survival in anyone's hands.

Moderator:
Elisabeth McElderry, Medact

Speakers:
1. Catherine Thomasson, MD; President, Physicians for Social Responsibility, USA
"The military and humanitarian consequences of an attack against Iran"
2. Shahriar Khateri, MD; President, Society of Chemical Weapons Victims Support, Tehran
"An Iranian Perspective on Humanitarian Consequences of Preemption: Lessons Learned from teh Past"
3. Ron McCoy, MD; Former Co-President, IPPNW
"Abolition is the Third, Best, and Only Option"

Closing Ceremony: Candlelight Procession