ICAN Action Plan

During the 18th World Congress in New Delhi in 2008, IPPNW developed an Action Plan for nuclear abolition campaigning over the next two years. The action plan focuses on these four areas of special concern to physicians:

Nuclear Famine

A nuclear war involving even a small fraction of the world's 25,000 nuclear warheads would kill tens of millions of people and leave entire regions uninhabitable for decades. Climate scientists have now learned that even a relatively small nuclear war would have devastating effects on the global climate. Nuclear-war-induced climate change would disrupt agricultural production around the world, and the resulting "nuclear famine" could kill as many as a billion people who already live on the edge of starvation.

Physician experts have joined climate scientists in presenting these findings to members of Congress in the US; to parliamentarians in Britain and Germany; to nuclear experts at NATO; to the President and Prime Minister of India; and to diplomats at meetings of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and the UN General Assembly. Our goal is to persuade the international community that the only meaningful solution to a danger so great is the complete elimination of nuclear weapons.

Follow the link here to more detailed information, including fact sheets, scientific papers, and a Powerpoint presentation that can be used by doctors, medical students, and grassroots activists to disseminate these findings and explain their importance.
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Highly enriched uranium (HEU) in radiopharmaceutical production

Physicians concerned with preventing nuclear war and eliminating nuclear weapons have a problem in their own backyard. Highly enriched uranium (HEU), the fissionable material at the core of many nuclear weapons, is used in some commercial reactors to produce isotopes used in diagnostic and therapeutic procedures. These reactors represent a vulnerable pathway to the proliferation of nuclear weapons. IPPNW is campaigning to convert radiopharmaceutical production reactors to low-enriched uranium, a recommendation resisted by industry and some governments. Follow the link here to learn more about proliferation dangers associated with nuclear medicine, to read IPPNW's draft policy on medical isotope production, and to download briefing papers, journal articles, and a Powerpoint presentation.
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Uranium mining and health

Uranium mining poisons the environment and devastates the health of miners and their families. The mine and mill workers are usually from the most vulnerable and exploited communities in the world, such as the Navajo in North America, aboriginal Australians, the Adivasi tribes in India, and the desert-dwelling Topnaar community in Namibia. Profit-driven mining companies, often in collusion with governments that want uranium either for nuclear weapons or for fuel in nuclear power plants, fail to provide adequate safety equipment or health care for workers and families suffering from exposure to radiation and toxic mine wastes. IPPNW doctors have documented increased incidences of cancers, birth defects, respiratory diseases, and other illnesses in some of the worst affected communities.

For example, Indian Doctors for Peace and Development is working with communities at the Jadugoda mines in northeast India and is empowering them to demand safer mining procedures and protective equipment, proper waste management, and health clinics for workers and their families. With the expertise and support of MAPW, IPPNW's Australian affiliate, the traditional Mirrar people are continuing their resistance to the proposed Jabiluka uranium mine in the Northern Territory. By bringing the plight of these indigenous victims of the nuclear age to the media, policy makers, and the public, IPPNW is driving home the fact that nuclear weapons can destroy lives even without detonation.

Follow the link here for more information and to download Powerpoint presentations on the health status of indigenous people living around the Jadugoda uranium mines, and on the health implications of Australia's expanding uranium industry.
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The Nuclear Weapons Convention

The goal of ICAN is to reawaken public concern about the growing threat posed by nuclear weapons, and to mobilize civil society to demand a nuclear-weapon-free world through the negotiation and adoption of a Nuclear Weapons Convention. Follow this link to learn more about the Convention and how to support it.
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For more information about the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), contact John Loretz, Program Director, IPPNW, 10 Union Square, #204, Somerville, MA 02143; 617.440.1733, ext. 280.