I am afraid that Helen Caldicott's biggest fans are those who have never studied nuclear physics.

Read what those who have say about her.

"Helen Caldicott, a highly political activist who has never
published a paper in a scientific journal on health effects of
radiation and is not a member of any of the major scientific
societies that deal with that subject."

Nuclear and Radiation Safety Issues
Responses of Professionals in the Industry

www.ntanet.net/publicinfo.html

Of course that is no where near so exciting as those lovely attacks on the establishment.

logic, I infer that those that have studied nuclear physics are also those that are interested in the continuation of an industry that they have spent time and money studying. Therefore they are somewhat biased. Dr Caldicot stands to make little personal gain from her stance and indeed holds herself out to ridicule from the establishment and their true believers. Having watched the documentary on her today on SBS, she is also far from being hysterical on the issue. To the contrary she appears well-informed and literate, and not at all afraid to take on whoever she needs to, all with poise and dignity. Whilst she may not have been a nuclear physicist, she is certainly well educated and intelligent and capable of educating herself about such a subject.

Personally I have a swinging opinion (and I notice that none of the other posters so far could say the same). I can see benefits from a greater reliance on non-carbon technology, but I also recognise great danger from puddling in such a toxic substance. If we can get to the stage where advanced reactors can process the toxic junk down to reasonably harmless substances, then fine. But by all accounts we are not there yet. I dont think its something we should rush into just because the rest of the world thinks its trendy at the moment. Lets do a bit more Aussie-style fence sitting first.

As a by-line, I loved the good doctors summary about why any capacity for nuclear weapons is dangerous. I believe it went something along the lines of... "there is a very small percentage of men who have a toxic reaction to testosterone.... unfortunately these are currently running the White House".

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A rather refreshing set of answers

first ,honor to common sense
"To the contrary she appears well-informed and literate, and not at all afraid to take on whoever she needs to, all with poise and dignity.
Whilst she may not have been a nuclear physicist, she is certainly well educated and intelligent and capable of educating herself about such a subject."
...........country gal

Then the incoherent
"Energy will be able to be created elsewhere and safetly but looking at least another 10 years."
..........tapp
Wootzat ?

somewhat more intelligible "happy with waste in the back yard "
if you live in Sydney you would be aware that low level waste from hospitals and universities is stored in garages , rent a space , backyards and such ,
it doesn't matter , 90% of radioactive waste isn't radioactive anyway, only the medium grade , heavily irradiated equipment and the hight level ( fuel ) is to be treated with care , even then the notion of death on a stick is pure Gothic romanticism

now for the arguments
"The small increments of risk at low dose means that epidemiological studies lack the sensitivity to detect
the excess risk, or else the findings are inconsistent."
..........anti green

What the man is saying is that if low dose casualties are extended it's equivalent to the line
if 100 people die drowning every year , 10 millions will die from drinking a glass of water

somewhat of a low blow but still pretty accurate
"I am afraid that Helen Caldicott's biggest fans are those who have never studied nuclear physics.
.........logic

I would rather believe that as a specie we are prone to self delusion
the biggest fan of Ms Caldicott's are those who are not interested in studying nuclear Physic . or any science for that matter

The scientific revolution pushed back the bound of obscurantism and delusional superstition , always the old evils will push to come back

It is interesting to note that Logic's information to support his defamatory remarks over Dr Caldicott is 10 years old.

It appears that Dr Caldicott's "expert" opponents on that URL may end up with egg on their face.

The European Commission has given the go ahead and the funding for research into the impact of low and protracted doses of ionising radiation.

The programme (titled RISC - RAD) is a gathering of 80 scientists in 29 research institutes from 11 countries and will allow the partners to measure the knowledge gained.

One of the aims is to study the long term effects of low-dose ionising radiation and how it causes cancer.

Of course, Dr Caldicott is a decade ahead of these researchers, however, better late than never!

In Australia, we have the baffling high incident of breast cancer among women working at the ABC in Brisbane. Then you had TV presenter, Andrew Ollie who died of a brain tumour at a young age and the recent death last month, of the news' broadcaster from another brain tumour.

We get the usual inane sophistry from regulatory authorities assuring us there is "no immediate danger" from microwave radiation which is similar to the advice from scientists who encouraged us to kill anything that moved with the heinous organochlorines. As like the scientists with organochlorines, the current ones obviously haven't a clue or they would have shut the ABC down before the excessive number of cancers emerged.

The RISC RAD website advises their programme "is designed to enable improved and more appropriate standards to be addressed" in the field of radiation. Ehhhh...he...hem..does that mean we've been duped all along?

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well dickie , of course radionucleides are dangerous and should be handled with suitable precautions ,
like any other hazardous material
I don't see people protesting against lead in car batteries or their kiddies toys mercury batteries .
marie curie would be horified to have her name used against her beloved science ,
she struggled to push the boundaries of knowledge, one of her discoveries was the danger of radiation ,
true Marie Curie got radiation sickness , so did her professor and friend Becquerel ,so did others
they were pioneers and the defeat of ignorance had to be paid for .
Marie was crushing tonnes of pechblende ore to extract the active element Radium , slaving in an old shed at the ecole nationale de chimie ,
it was still standing in the 70ies , used for tool technology classes for fresh faced undergraduates ,
the background radiation was still above normal for Paris , but below Brittany or Devon
in the 90ies at work I calibrated an atomic cesium source level detector
for fun I took the safety geiger counter to the beach to take some readings , sure enough coogee beach , bondy and maroubra are clearly radioactive , much more that around the source , there was no drama with the state government then , I wonder why ?

I'm OK with not building nuclear power plant , if you think coal fired base stations is better , well go for it ,
they are the cheapest way of producing the power people crave , but there is no need of inventing nuclear risks to frighten the good folks

also it's not sophisticated inner city folk who pay the blood price of coal power
but it is some yobbos and their families in a grim mining town ,far out of sight out of mind ,
so coal is all right I guess

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Nuclear physics is studied by anyone who takes physics to a reasonable level. Helen Caldicott obviously hasn't, her howlers are apparent to anyone who has. In fact medical students only study physics in first year which does not cover much detail on the nucleus.

To suggest that anyone who has studied physics is biased is ridiculous, the study of nuclear physics is not the study of nuclear power but of the structure of the atom. The link I gave may be 10 years old, but physics is not a fashion statement, it is the most basic of sciences and its basic principles are not changed very often.

Only last year Helen made one of her scaremongering statements about the solubility of Xenon which was so inaccurate that a friend, a retired Professor (of chemical engineering) with a long background with oil refineries (not nuclear power) knew to be totally false and showed a fundamental misunderstanding of the principles of physical chemistry.

I am open on the subject, but having experience as an engineer with the power industry (coal fired) I am at least in a position to identify the charlatans. Trouble is that misinformation from armchair greenies (as opposed to knowledgeable environmentalists) is driving an uninformed debate. I do not know Helen's motives but I wish she would stick to her own field of expertise which is certainly not physics or engineering.