You are here: www.ippnw-europe.org | en | Nuclear Energy and Security
Risks and side effects of nuclear energy
New informative fact sheet
04/21/2020 The nuclear industry is trying yet again to advertise nuclear power as a form of "clean energy" that can allegedly save the climate. The facts however, tell a different story. Both fossil and nuclear energy exploit limited natural ressources, cause environmental destruction and pose health risks, severely violating human rights. The German affiliate of the IPPNW therefore advocates a rapid phase-out of both fossil and nuclear energy generation and has released an informative fact sheet explaining the reasons why nuclear energy should not be seen as a viable option for the future.
Thyroid cancer in Fukushima
9 years after the multiple nuclear meltdowns
03/09/2020 On February 13th, 2020, the Oversight Committee of the Fukushima Health Management Survey presented the new set of thyroid cancer data (up until September 30th, 2019). After the initial screening of approximately 300,000 children who were living in Fuku-shima Prefecture at the time of the multiple nuclear meltdowns or were born shortly thereafter (2011-2014), follow-up examinations were carried out every two years. The second examinations has already been completed, the third one is in its final phase and the fourth series of examinations has now been underway since 2018.
Uranium is also a feminist issue
Around the world, women are resisting the civil and military use of nuclear technology
01/15/2020 Women have always and everywhere been part of the history of uranium processing and nuclear technology—as workers in uranium production, as residents in the vicinity of mines, or as victims of military and civilian nuclear disasters. Women are particularly vulnerable to the health effects of uranium production because they are twice as sensitive to radiation as men. Indigenous women suffer doubly, because uranium extraction and nuclear weapons testing takes place in large part in (formerly) colonial areas. Resistance against uranium mining and nuclear technology is supported by female doctors, physicists, and journalists all over the world, who raise awareness about the consequences, which are otherwise often whitewashed or inadequately documented. Nevertheless, women’s role in organizing the struggle against nuclear weapons and energy remains extremely underexposed.
Is there a place for civil nuclear power in the 21st century?
10/14/2019 The strongest reasons to oppose expanding nuclear technology are the military links and weapons proliferation. Although the world will get more energy-hungry, reliable and cheaper renewables could rapidly replace fossil fuels with no need to expand the uneconomic nuclear option. Coordinating renewables’ expansion with poverty alleviation, especially in Africa, offers a win-win for promoting peace and reversing anthropogenic climate change through nuclear-free decarbonization.
To correspond with the recent publication of the paper ‘How Nuclear Power powers the Bomb’, co-authored by Angelika Claussen (European regional vice president of IPPNW), Frank Boulton (Medact) and Alex Rosen (IPPNW-Germany), Medact published a blog by Frank Boulton outlining the financial, environmental, health and geo-political arguments around nuclear power.
How Nuclear Power powers the bomb
The interdependence of military and civilian nuclear industries
09/27/2019 Reuters recently reported that nuclear energy is both too slow and too expensive to present a meaningful response to the climate catastrophe facing our planet. So why are countries like the UK, France, Russia or China still investing in it? The answer lies in the demands of the military, who require a robust backbone of civil nuclear infrastructure for their nuclear weapons programs. This backbone includes the mining, refinement, transportation, enrichment and safeguarding of uranium, as well as research and development and a large number of nuclear engineers and scientists. Hence the investments in civil nuclear energy. Frank Boulton (MedAct), Angelika Claussen (IPPNW Europe) and Dr. Alex Rosen (IPPNW Germany) just published an informative publication on this subject.
New Swiss Nuclear Power Plant Risk Study
06/06/2019 An new study discusses the probability of a major nuclear accident as well as the harm to persons. It aims at characterizing the health effects of ionizing radiation and it evaluates thenumber of people impactedby a radioactive cloud and by the deposition of radioactive material on the ground. It further evaluates the number of people inneedofa resettlement. It also analyses the size of the area lost for agriculture due to radio-contamination. The Western European nuclear power plants (NPPs) under scrutiny are Beznau, Gösgen, Leibstadt and Mühleberg in Switzerland and Bugey in France. The report that was published by Swiss scientists, among them Claudio Knüsli who is the leader of the Swiss IPPNW affiliate.
The Fukushima nuclear disaster: 8 years on
By Tilman Ruff
03/11/2019 Eight years after the world’s most complex nuclear disaster, the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plants and spent fuel ponds are still leaking and dangerous, vast amounts of contaminated water continue to accumulate, 8000 odd clean-up workers labour daily and will need to for many decades, the needs of people exposed to radioactivity are still neglected, no one is in prison for a disaster fundamentally caused by the negligence of the operator and the government, and most of the lessons of Fukushima have yet to heeded.
Climate Conference: Don´t nuke the Climate
Scientists’ appeal to the COP and the UNFCCC
11/18/2017 From November 6th to 17th, 2017 the UN Climate Conference was held in Bonn, Germany. During the conference the nuclear industry was intensively lobbying for access to climate funding mechanisms such as the UN Green Climate Fund for its outdated and dangerous nuclear technology. The international campaign “Don’t nuke the climate” forwarded a letter to the German environmental minister Barbara Hendricks which was signed by 70 scientists. In this letter scientists argue that nuclear energy is not the solution to climate change: It is too dirty, too dangerous and also would take too long to be a meaningful answer to global warming.
Moreover, the new nuclear power plant Hinckley Point in the UK is being built – not to solve energy problems, but to hide the costs for the British nuclear weapons program.
Three years after Fukushima
Three years ago, thousands of people died and almost half a million lost their homes in Japan's worst peacetime disaster. But the catastrophe isn't over as experts still struggle to contain radioactive leaks from the stricken plant. DW spoke to Angelika Claußen of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War Germany.
Health consequences resulting from Fukushima
03/06/2013 On 11 March 2011, a nuclear catastrophe occurred at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant in Japan in the wake of an earthquake and due to serious safety deficiencies. The initial health consequences of the nuclear catastrophe are now, two years after the incident, scientifically verifiable. Similar to the case of Chernobyl, a decline in the birth rate was documented in the nine months following the nuclear catastrophe. In the Fukushima Prefecture alone, some 55,592 children were diagnosed with thyroid gland nodules or cysts. In the long term there are many expected cases of cancer due to Fukushima.
Protecting health after the Fukushima nuclear disaster
09/20/2012 Following the IPPNW (International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War) World Congress in Hiroshima on August 24-26, the related symposium in Tokyo, and their visit to Fukushima to meet with local medical professionals on August 28, international medical experts from IPPNW will held a press conference on the medical and health issues related to Fukushima on Wednesday August 29.
Just in case you missed it, here’s why radiation is a health hazard
04/07/2011 The March 11 earthquake and tsunami in Japan and complicating nuclear crisis throw into sharp focus concerns about exposure to ionising radiation. What is it, how is it harmful, how much is too much? Inside a nuclear reactor, the radioactivity is increased about a million times as some of the uranium or plutonium is converted to a cocktail of hundreds of different radioactive elements.
Greek anti-nuclear activists want the closure of Kozloduy NPP and the ‘freezing’ of Belene
Interview with Maria Arvaniti Sotiropoulou
03/31/2011 GRReporter: >>The world anti-nuclear movement is gaining strength and it believes that the time has come for humanity to realize that nuclear energy is not so safe and to focus on alternative energy sources. Since its establishment in 1980, the association International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War has the sole purpose of "creating a more peaceful and safer world, free from the threat of nuclear destruction." The federation, which has affiliates in 63 countries, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1985. The Greek Medical Association for the Protection of the Environment and Against Nuclear and Biochemical Threat is the Greek branch of the world federation. GRReporter interviewed its President Dr. Maria Arvaniti - Sotiropoulou.<<
25 Years After Chernobyl – 28 Days after Fukushima
03/24/2011 The aftermath of the nuclear reactor catastrophe in Chernobyl and Fukushima, and the fates of the people suffering from nuclear contamination worldwide, are the focus of this international congress in Berlin, April 8 to 10. 25 years after the Chernobyl disaster, our planet is currently witnessing yet another vast nuclear tragedy which underlines dramatically the risks of nuclear technology. Nuclear energy kills. Join us to hear information about and discuss the dangers of the nuclear chain.
Radiation might effect Japan's youngest
Interview with Dr. Winfrid Eisenberg
03/18/2011 After the nuclear disaster in Chernobyl, the world was shocked by babies born with deformities and the high rate of prenatal defects in the affected areas. How dangerous is the situation in Japan for children? In this article, IPPNW physician Dr. Winfrid Eisenberg tells Deutsche Welle that unborn children are most at risk from radiation.
IPPNW Germany demands shut down of nuclear reactors worldwide
At the annual meeting of the German IPPNW affiliate this weekend in Frankfurt/Main, physicians passed a resolution calling for all nuclear plants worldwide to be closed down. The catastrophe at the Fukushima nuclear installation was a central topic for the 100 doctors over the weekend, who organised a spontaneous demonstration in central Frankfurt to protest against continued use of nuclear power. IPPNW experts on nuclear safety, radiation and health were called upon to give numerous interviews to the media and appear on nationwide television.
Independence for WHO
Appeal by health professionals
12/20/2007 The World Health Organization (WHO) works towards the resolution of public health problems and to this end, it is mandated "to assist in developing an informed public opinion" (WHO Constitution, 7 April 1948). However, since the WHO/IAEA Agreement (WHA12-40) was signed on 28 May 1959, the WHO appears to be subordinate to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). As health professionals, we support the request that WHO, in line with its constitution, recover its independence in the area of ionising radiation.
Childhood leukaemia and nuclear facilities
Meta-analysis of Baker P.J. & Hoel D.G.
07/15/2007 In response to the cluster of childhood leukaemia reported near the Sellafield nuclear site in Great Britain in 1984 there have been numerous studies assessing the possible risk of childhood leukaemia due to irradiation from nuclear sites. While many studies have found positive associations, few results have been significant. Although there is little doubt that exposure to radiation increases the risk of developing leukaemia there is disagreement as to whether the amount of exposure received by children living near nuclear sites is sufficient to increase risk.
Chernobyl
Looking back to go forwards
Hardly noticed by the public, the Chernobyl Forum of the United Nations was founded in 2003 as a strong-man act. On 6 and 7 September 2005, the results of its working groups were presented at a conference organised by the IAEA in Vienna. The purpose of this complex co-operation over several years was to formulate official versions with regard to the twentieth anniversary of the disaster on the highest possible level, namely that of UN organisations and governments, to conclude all research projects about Chernobyl and to propagate the thesis that the main problem of the region was poverty, not the Chernobyl disaster.
Health Effects of Chernobyl
20 years after the reactor catastrophe
04/05/2006 The Chernobyl catastrophe changed the world. Millions of people were made victims overnight. Gigantic stretches of land were made uninhabitable. The radioactive cloud spread all over the world. An understanding of the dangers of the use of nuclear energy grew in a countless number of minds. Even in Germany, people became sick and died due to the radiation they incorporated into their bodies through eating and breathing. An analysis of the effects of Chernobyl is massively handicapped by the number of very varying levels of facts. Essential data on the course of events of the catastrophe and its health effects are not publicly available.
Health of Liquidators
Symposium in Bern, Switzerland
11/12/2005 The Swiss affiliate of PSR / IPPNW has held a Symposium "Health of Liquidators (Clean-up Workers), 20 Years after the Chernobyl Explosion". With the support of the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Berne, they organized a scientific program, dedicated to the effects of artificial radioactive radiation in 800.000 clean-up workers, the so-called liquidators. These were mainly younger adults (mean age 33 years) who were enrolled and had to decontaminate heavily contaminated areas, close to the exploded Chernobyl nuclear reactor. Half of them were military personnel from all republics of the Soviet Union, the others were civil technicians, miners, pilots, drivers, healthy young men and also women.
How Nuclear Power powers the Bomb
IPPNW/PSR report
International Congress
ippnw bulletin
Fukushima: Put an end to the nuclear age, 4 page leaflet, download as pdf file.
The Health Legacy of Chernobyl, 4 page leaflet, download as pdf file.
