The Caldicott Files: Lessons from History

If recent posts are any indication, contributors to this blog were shocked by presentations by Dr. Helen Caldicott as part of her book-promotion tour. If we had been better students of history, we might have been spared the shock. Consider the following descriptions of her:

Dr. Caldicott has considerable stage presence, a certain articulateness, and considerable gifts as an improviser.

[...]

The typical Caldicott lecture ... starts out with a quick and lucid account of the various forms of radiation. She then moves to note that it is possible to cause genetic and other physical defects through radiation. From there it is a grand leap to proclaim that nuclear power plants, because they produce radiation, which has been shown to cause various defects, must inevitably produce epidemics of such defects. (There is never any argumentation to suggest how the radiation is to be let loose upon the public so as to cause these defects.)

[...]

From this point on, coherence and evidence begin to go downhill.

[...]

The evidence is, regrettably, that Dr. Caldicott'’s impassioned speeches frequently have little to do with reality.

The author of these descriptions also noted that her critics have described her as "“overemotional"”.

Were these descriptions inspired by a recent visit to Poets and Busboys? No. You can find all this and more in The War against the Atom, by Samuel McCracken. It was published by Basic Books (New York) in 1982. Check out pages 113 through 116.

I guess some things never change.

Technorati tags: Nuclear Energy, Nuclear Power, Electricity, Environment, Energy, Politics, Technology, Economics, Helen Caldicott