Nuclear madness

Helen Caldicott, an Australian physician and longtime anti-nuclear campaigner, first published this critique of nuclear power in 1978. Since then the world has shifted considerably. The Cold War has ended and the production of nuclear weapons has fallen, while public concern for the environment has grown. Even so, nuclear energy has not been brought under control. The catastrophe at Chernobyl and a series of accidents at reactors elsewhere have shown that the claim that nuclear power is safe does not hold up.

The book also looks at how dumping nuclear waste has contaminated the environment and how spreading nuclear technology into developing nations adds new hazards. This expanded and thoroughly revised edition, written for the 1990s, examines the dangers in detail. It covers the influence of the nuclear power industry and the American government's involvement in medical experiments that used radioactive material. Caldicott argues that readers have a moral duty to resist these dangers, for their own sake and for future generations.