Medact is part of a network of health professionals in 58 countries - International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) - working for the total abolition of nuclear weapons and all weapons of mass destruction.
Besides the dangers of their use in war or accident, nuclear weapons impact now on health and the environment through the effects of their past production and testing. These include deaths, cancers, other illnesses and large amounts of radioactive waste. We still cannot estimate the long-term effects of radiation on individuals, future generations and other life on the planet.
We believe the billions of pounds spent annually on nuclear weapons diverts creativity and resources from other much more socially useful services such as hospitals and schools.
You can find more information on Nuclear by visiting the archive.
Adobe Acrobat
Many of the documents available on this site are in PDF format.
To view them you will need to download Adobe Acrobat Reader if it is not already installed on your system.
What may we learn from Fukushima?Medact's Chair Frank Boulton writes on the still unfolding events at the Fukushima nuclear power plant and the history of the Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) that manages it; he considers the implications for the UK's nuclear power industry and revisits the health effects of the Chernobyl disaster 25 years ago. To access the article click download. 20/04/2011
IPPNW Berlin conference: Stop the Nuclear Timebomb - abandon nuclear power now!A conference to mark the 25th anniversary of Chernobyl has been held in Berlin as part of the European IPPNW meeting 2011, and on April 8th IPPNW Germany released a new report on the health effects of Chernobyl, which evaluates studies that contain plausible indications of the health damage caused by the catastrophe. Click here to download the full report or access it online. 13/04/2011
Inquiry into implications of Fukushima for UK nuclear power industryDr Mike Weightman mike.weightman@hse.gsi.gov.uk, the Chief Nuclear Inspector, has been asked by Chris Huhne, the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, to conduct an inquiry into the implications of the Fukushima disaster for nuclear power in the UK. Please write to him asking him to take the health consequences of nuclear power into account, and make the point that if he does his decision has to be to stop any new nuclear build. Click here for some points you make want to make. 24/03/2011
Nuclear power is not the answerIt is often claimed that nuclear power is the answer to climate change. Ian Fairlie and Alison Whyte consider this argument and find that this is clearly not the case. To download the article click here.07/03/2011
Let's take cancer clusters seriously this timeAmong the many environmental concerns surrounding nuclear power plants the fear that children living near nuclear facilities face an inreased risk of cancer perhaps provokes the greatest anxiety . Now three major new studies by scientists from Germany and the US have re-ignited the long debate about the scientific evidence,,,,, click on the website below to read the summary of the article by Medact Trustee Dr Ian Fairlie in the New Scientist.12/05/2008
Medact's submission to Select Committee on Environmental AuditDr Ian Fairlie's submission on behalf of Medact to the Select Committee on Environmental Audit, critically examines the claims made for nuclear power in the context of climate change.
You can download the submission by clicking download or click the website link given below. From there, select the HTML version of the Sixth Report. Then click on "Written Evidence" at the bottom of the contents, and the link to the Memorandum submitted by Medact can be found approximately half-way down the page.27/05/2006
For all details of Medact's influential and widely reported conference click here 28/04/2006
Nuclear Power - the case againstThe debate about nuclear power has been given fresh urgency with the formal launch on January 23rd of the UK Energy Review. Nuclear power, and the amount of carbon dioxide emitted during its production, has also become part of the climate change debate. Generating electricity by nuclear fission is potentially very hazardous to health for a number of reasons....27/01/2006
