Abstract
When the Chernobyl nuclear reactor meltdown sent gusts of radioactively contaminated air across the globe in 1986, both International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) and its American affiliate, Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR), set about their antinuclear activism with renewed vigour. PSR alone was swamped with phone calls from people living near nuclear reactors, weapons-testing sites, manufacturing facilities, waste dumps and uranium mines, as well as from Americans travelling and living abroad. People expressed concerns about the long and short-term effects of radiation exposure; they were anxious about the ecological threats of radiation; they wanted information on the difference between a commercial nuclear reactor meltdown and the fallout from a nuclear weapon explosion; and they worried about ‘the psychological aspects of nuclear crisis management’.1 Just six days after the accident, PSR orchestrated its largest press conference ever through its national office. The group called for American- Soviet negotiations to set up an ‘international protocol for cooperative management of disasters involving nuclear technology’, advocated the establishment of an international panel of scientists to study the long and short-term health effects of the Chernobyl disaster, and encouraged the immediate shut-down of all Department of Energy (DOE) ‘operated reactors until they [could] meet Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) standards’.2
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Notes
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© 2012 Lisa Rumiel
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Rumiel, L. (2012). Exposing the Cold War Legacy: The Activist Work of Physicians for Social Responsibility and International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, 1986 and 1992. In: Berridge, V., Gorsky, M. (eds) Environment, Health and History. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230347557_11
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230347557_11
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