The Australian Women's Register

Summary

Helen Caldicott has achieved an international reputation as a tireless campaigner against nuclear power and weapons. Trained as a medical practitioner, she is acutely aware of the effects of radiation on living beings and on the environment. While living in the United States of America from 1977 to 1986, she formed the organisation called ‘Physicians for Social Responsibility’, serving as its president from 1978 to 1983. In the belief that women had a special role to play in the peace movement, she established Women’s Action for Nuclear Disarmament in 1986 and became a full-time anti-nuclear activist. She addressed anti-nuclear and peace rallies in Australia and around the world and wrote a number of books on the topic of nuclear disarmament.