Conversation with Mike Gannon and Irwin Redlener

and from Gainesville, Florida Mhm Live Live presents conversation from the University of Florida, a discussion of social, political, scientific and religious issues of the day. Your host is Dr Michael Vegan in professor of history and ethics and assistant dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Florida.

Good evening. And my guest on this conversation is Dr Irwin Redlener, who is chairman of the National Executive Committee of Physicians for Social Responsibility. Welcome to conversation, Doctor Red Letter. And may I say also, that you are practicing pediatric physician and that you teach pediatric medicine in the state university system at Syracuse, New York, Physicians for Social Responsibility.

It's a new organization, but it doesn't mean that physicians have at last achieved for themselves a social responsibility. What is the particular social responsibility that you and your organization direct your efforts toward? Well, actually, uh, Physicians for Social Responsibility of PSR had its roots in the early sixties, and a few activist oriented physicians in 1960 61 really, at the request of the government began to look into the effects and consequences of nuclear war.

Did a very, uh, involved study and published in the New England Journal of Medicine back in 1962. The organization then became dormant for a while and then re emerged about three years ago under the leadership of a Dr Helen Caldicott, also a pediatrician. And it has really taken on as its aim the description of the consequences of nuclear war and and in educating people on physicians about this about the consequences.

It has evolved into a very potent organization, we think, in affecting public opinion. What was the nature of the original article in the New England Journal of Medicine? Which, by the way, I think is acknowledged as the premier publication, uh, for physicians and healthcare professionals. What was the thrust of that original are they took as an illustration a theoretical attack by nuclear weapon on the city of Boston?

And they described the injuries and the consequences. It was such an overwhelming description. It was so incredible. And they described hundreds of thousands of people being killed instantly. Another couple of 100,000 people being gravely injured and burned. And as a result of that study, it added to the general consciousness a feeling about nuclear war as not really being anything that's medically remedial.

Um, and I think this is kind of an important part of where we stand now. And that is to say that our message is that nuclear war would certainly be horrifying. But more than that that people should realize that there is no potential medical response to its consequences.

This is your present message as well. That's right. What is it that is particularly knew about that message? Hasn't it always been part of our bank of information that a nuclear war would be catastrophic in in so many different forms? The people at the center of the explosion would be vaporized, others would be burned to death and others would have lingering radiation injuries, with the result that just millions, if not hundreds of millions of people, would be killed in a nuclear exchange.

What new dimension of understanding are you bringing to our consciousness? Well, what's new is that in spite of that message, being around for maybe 15 or 20 years is that the people have gotten the message don't seem to be the people who are making the decisions about continuation of the arms race, so that in spite of the presence, at least, uh, the covert presence of that message being available to people.

We've managed to get ourselves into an increasingly dangerous situation so that we now sit really on the brink of a potential nuclear catastrophe, where we have the National Security Council announcing last spring in The Washington Post that there's a two and five chance of having a nuclear war by the end of the century.

Um, and we see more and more funds and energy being put into planning for nuclear war, etcetera. So even though the message was there, it was somehow not incorporated into the decision making process. There's still lots of people who decide about acquiring new weapons, for example, that are convinced that we could survive a nuclear war.

So I guess our role right now is to kind of remind people that survival, at least from our perspective, is not a likely possibility for the bulk of Americans and certainly not at all a possibility for what we consider to be the social fabric, the thing that makes us human civilization worth saving.

So you're opposing the view that a nuclear war is winnable by either side right. Okay. The World Health Organization is about to come out with a report in which they estimate that an international nuclear war would result in 2.5 billion deaths on the planet and 2.5 billion deaths is something that really boggles the imagination.

I don't think that I don't think that the people who make the decisions about the nuclear arms race are going to be able to ignore this and the other related messages. Now your membership is made up exclusively of physicians, is it? And medical students are healthcare professionals.

There's about 20,000 members across the country, about 16,000 of which are physicians and medical students, and the rest are supporters of other types. Um, are you allied with any particular political party or with any progressive or liberal movement in American political life to try to cut across all spectrums of?

In fact, this has been an extraordinarily interesting part of this. Physicians involved in that this the movement covers the entire political gamut. There are some very, very conservatively oriented physicians in it, uh, and also some more liberally oriented ones. But we absolutely have no affiliation with any political party or political candidates even.

And we try to stick exclusively to our message that nuclear war is not survivable and that the responsible parties in government need to take that into account in their planning. I know that you have a movie which is very evocative of the kinds of themes you've discussed.

What are some of the things that one would see in the movie that you show? The movie I think you're referring to is called The Final Epidemic. The Final Epidemic, That's It and The Last Epidemic. And this movie features some of the Physicians for Social Responsibility speakers who go around the country.

Talking includes also some physicists and other people who are involved with this issue. It describes in great detail both the physical consequences of nuclear war and also the human costs and the human consequences, and is a very, uh, powerful impactful presentation of what would happen to us in that event.

There are pictures from Hiroshima and other related areas that really brings the point home very strongly. Is there any significance to the fact that you are a pediatrician? Dr. Helen Caldicott, the national director, is a pediatrician Is there a particular sensitivity among those who work with the young?

Uh, with the future of mankind who are impelled to join this kind of movement? I'm with apologies to my internist friends, and I think there is something to that. At least there is for me. I think that as pediatricians, almost everything we do is future oriented.

We give baby immunizations to prevent in the future them, uh, from getting polio and diptheria etcetera. We monitor their growth and development to foresee future problems that they might have in pediatrics really does tend to look at the growth and development of individuals that have become good, productive and happy people later on.

And I guess the specter of nuclear war when over laid on the pediatric that discipline of pediatrics is that we might in fact, uh, not even be able to assure our young, our own Children as well as our patients, that there will be a future for them.

I have a 12 year old who is concerned that he might not live to be old enough to have Children himself. And this is one of the more horrifying aspects of this. Physicians are thought customarily to be a conservative lot. Yes, and I would imagine that you experience some opposition from within the ranks of physicians in the United States.

What kind of opposition do you receive? Well, it's interesting. First of all, it's Many people who are very conservatively oriented will say that it's they'll say, Doctor has no business being involved in this. That seems to be a political issue. And first of all, we look at it as a medical issue because we feel that the medical consequences, given the fact that there's no treatment for them, uh, we have to be able to prevent them.

That's number one. So it's really a medical problem. But even if it was a political problem, it it always shocks me to hear doctors say that it's we shouldn't get involved in political problems of the American Medical Association was the second highest spending political action committee lobby in Washington last year, beaten out only by the National Board of Realtors.

So we look at that kind of A scans because we wonder why people would say we're not political, were involved in every single state legislative body because we talk about third party payers. We talk about malpractice, litigation control. There's lots of so called political issues that doctors have been involved in, so I don't think that's a that's a reasonable thing to say to me when they do.

I heard Dr Caldicott speak recently in an appearance before the National Press Club in Washington, and her remarks were carried over National Public Radio. She was asked in the question session what she thought about conventional warfare in Europe, for example, between the forces of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact countries on the one side and those of NATO on the other.

And, she said that would be about is catastrophic for Europe, as would be a nuclear exchange, because a conventional war would cause the destruction of nuclear power plants and unleash radiation throughout the continent. That would have the effect of bringing about much of the epidemic that you describe in that motion picture of yours.

It was an interesting response. It shows that even in conventional war, we're not immune from the effects of nuclear power or nuclear warfare. Indirectly, indirectly, um, is yours the kind of presentation to the American public that is designed to scare it's designed to educate, and the certain things that we become educated about that are scary.

For example, if you're a smoker and I say to you, if you smoke, you're going to get you have a high likelihood of getting lung cancer or heart disease. And in fact, I'm so concerned about this. As a doctor, I'm going to show you a picture of what lungs look like that have been infiltrated with carcinoma.

Um, and that educational technique is it may be graphic, but I think it's effective. And when it's appropriate, I think that that kind of that's reasonable to do that. If somebody, uh gives you a message like that, you you tend to remember it more, and especially with something like this.

We are like smokers who are smoking two packs a day. In a way, we're kind of setting ourselves up for some really horrendous catastrophic event later on. And I think it's very important that physicians who are concerned about health take a preventive, prescriptive view towards this and say, Look our prescription for avoiding lung cancers, you stop smoking.

Our prescription for avoiding the catastrophic consequences of nuclear war is that we we have to look at nuclear weapons in a different way. Yes, what do we do if we look at nuclear weapons in a different way? What is your prescription for halting restraining the arms race or for inducing reason into those who would create more and more such weapons?

Well, I think that the physician's role in this is to make sure that we're all on the same wavelength the politicians, the public and physicians in saying that nuclear weapons and the use of them in war will would be an epidemic to call it an epidemic even is misusing the English line.

I don't think we have the words to describe what would happen. I think we have to convince people that survival in a broad sense, is not possible. Once we've done that and say, Well, what do we do about it? We have to make sure that people who are listening to our message are the politicians or the people that are talking to their political leaders and saying, We want you.

You're the ones with political leadership and you're the ones who have the control over this. We want you to defuse the situation. We want you do everything you can to make nuclear war less likely. And you're saying that to them in the abstract without giving them any concrete directions on how they're supposed concretely to bring that about.

Is that right? That's true. And certain things that make sense. For example, if you ask me if I do, I think that we need more nuclear weapons. And I say to you, Well, we have 10 to 12,000 strategic nuclear warheads on this side. Same number on the other side.

Uh, it's obvious to me, since it takes a couple of 100 to totally, uh, decimate the Soviet Union that we don't need to build anymore and that building more is potentially going to increase the risk and increase the likelihood of starting a nuclear war. May I assume from that response that you are directly supporting the nuclear freeze movement?

We would support any kind of legislative governmental action on both sides that would reduce first of all, that would stop the accumulation of nuclear weapons, and that would eventually reduce the stockpile on both sides. So, uh, when issues like that come up, if they seem appropriate, we can say Yes, we feel that sounds like a good idea.

If you're asking me personally, I certainly do think it's a good idea when you and Dr Caldicott speak to these issues before public bodies of one kind or another. Do you try to keep yourself within the framework of the express purpose of Physicians for Social Responsibility?

And I asked that question because I have heard criticism made of Dr Caldicott that she has wandered outside of the issue of nuclear weapons and human survival to talk about other issues and thus to politicize what was originally an educational enterprise. Uh, we try very hard to stick to the message, Um, after Carter cuts in an unusual position is she is a charismatic, internationally known at this time leader who says, uh, many things to many different audiences.

But basically the intent of her messages, as I've been saying, is to educate people about the consequences. Uh, and we do try to to control that, to be that specifically that you have many medical students in the movement. If I can call it a movement and one would tend to be a little surprised about that fact, given the other fact that we've not known college students in the last 10 years to be very active in social causes.

Why is it do you suppose medical students and some significant numbers have been attracted to this particular organization and its goals? Well, I'm not surprised about that, Dean. I think that, uh, medical students, as they are in the process of learning about disease and the consequences of disease in people, get very tuned into the ideology or the causes of particular kinds of medical or health problems.

I think they are at a point in their education is being very receptive to someone saying, Look, here's what kind of medical consequences will have, and we really need to get involved in stopping it and preventing it. So I think we're seeing some of that. They're really applying the medical model, that there just learning to this whole process with nuclear weapons.

I don't think we're seeing very much activity on the regular non medical camp on the undergraduate campuses, for example, compared to the medical schools. But I think that kind of makes sense is that we're trying to really bring this home as a medical issue. Now, when you go about the United States?

Hey, describing what could happen in a nuclear holocaust. Do you try to portray what must be going through the minds of the people in Soviet Russia today? One would think, given the knowledge available to them, that they too, are enormously concerned about their individual survival and that of their Children.

Do you have any information that you've been able to give in this country about attitudes toward nuclear weapons on the part of not only the medical fraternity, but the populations at large and Soviet, You know, the Soviet Union? Actually, uh, well, first of all, this is a very large contingent of Soviet physicians involved in a similar movement to this, they've received very, very broad exposure and all the Soviet press, including all the major newspapers and major television media.

Uh, they have discussions public discussions about this that are essentially identical to what PSR says in this country about the the horrendous consequences of nuclear war. They're not free, On the other hand, to say things like, I think what you should do about is right, the Kremlin, and tell them to do such and such.

But they do The Soviet public has been extraordinarily well educated about the consequences of nuclear war, just like just like we have been in this country. It's an interesting thing about the Soviets. I think that they that first of all, peace are very much supports a bilateral reduction of nuclear capacity.

And secondly, we I guess we've taken the view that we can't wait for the Soviet governmental system to become an American type democracy in order to get nuclear arms control. A lot of people say, Well, what about the Russians? We can't trust them. They're not like us.

They can't speak out. That's all true. And I think there may be problems with Soviet society and their form of government. But right now we have an immediate problem that we have to deal with, which is that we are on the brink of a nuclear disaster and we need to work with them.

To the extent that the risk of nuclear war between these two major superpowers is, uh, that this this risk is reduced was there not within the year or the last two years. An international conference on this This matter involving physicians not only from the United States and the Soviet Union, but from other countries.

Besides, yes, there's a group called the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War I P P N W. And they're meeting annually. In fact, they're meeting again this June, and at each meeting this will be the third one. They draft joint letters to the American president, the Soviet premier, and they go over again the horrifying effects of nuclear war and urge bilateral control and reduction of arms.

Do you see any parallel between nuclear weaponry about which were so concerned, and poison gas, which was available to all the armies of the world following the first World War in which it was first used extensively? Poison gas was not used in the Second World War, except perhaps in very isolated cases in which I'm not aware.

And there you have a weapon of mass destructive power as far as human life is concerned. And yet humankind was able to prevent itself from unleashing the horrors of gas warfare, even a madman. If Hitler was a madman, even a person such as he, many people would argue, I think that there is a limit beyond which man will not go.

There is a frontier of madness that the human species will not transgress because of an innate desire of the species to preserve itself. And I don't know that there's very much truth to that. But I think popularly it is a conception of people that human society will really not destroy itself.

So we really ought not to worry about it. We didn't kill each other off with poison gas. We're not going to kill each other off with nuclear weapons. Do you find that kind of attitude? That attitude? Unfortunately, I think it's a myth because for one thing, the technology associated with nuclear weapons has has been in the process of eliminating the human factor for years.

And within the next few years both countries will have launch on warning capabilities. And if you can imagine this, it means that since it's only a 15 minute warning time from a sub launch of a nuclear device to its target in one of the other countries that each country has to develop a computerized detection and response system so that attack counterattack rather is launched as soon as indication of primary attack comes with no opportunity for human intervention.

So we may be in a situation where the technology itself will destroy us, regardless of what our intentions are. And this is another reason why we don't have much time to really focus in on and do something about this issue. I wish I could be convinced that humankind we'll have a sense of good that will prevail, and we won't end up destroying each other.

But if you examine the military efforts and expenditures and the nuclear weapons development of both sides, it's hard to be convinced that such goodwill will, in fact prevail. Let me ask a personal question of you. How did you get interested in this particular cause? Movement? Purpose goal.

It actually came because one of my Children, who I indicated earlier uh, asked me if I thought that he would live long enough to have his own Children, and I was completely taken it back. I was in New York studying neonatology at that time, and I asked him what he meant and he'd heard some report about nuclear weapons or nuclear arms on T V.

And at that moment I knew that something horrendous was happening within my own family and that we needed to do much more with this as individuals and as groups. The least we can do as adults and responsible members of society, nor, as physicians is two assure ourselves that there will be a world and an opportunity to live available to our Children and grandchildren.

If we jeopardize that legacy. We really have nothing left as human beings. We're just We have our own momentary existence, which in the long run won't be worth much. I don't think we have a civilization to, uh, look after and care for. And, uh, when my own Children speak to me of their fears of not growing up, I think, and I thought at the time, it's time for me to personally see what I could do as an individual.

How did you come to meet Dr Helen Caldicott? I called her on the telephone. She was on the Today show one time. What did you say? I said, What's happening? What are you doing? And she said, Well, we have 1000 members in this group were based in Boston, and we're trying to educate people about the dangers of nuclear war, and I I said, that sounds like a a wonderful thing to do.

And at that time I was just moving to Utica, New York, which is upstate. I started a chapter of PSR up there, started doing a lot of public speaking and good, more and more involved. She travels all over the world, doesn't change. And I don't suppose that she is able to maintain her medical practice.

That's all of that. You are able to, uh, yes, I do have a very busy pediatric practice. I'm gonna be speaking in Europe this summer, but it's demanding situation for a physician. Yet I think when we balance the priorities, it's important for us to to take a world or social perspective at some time or other in order to really function as effective people in society.

I asked you a moment ago if it was coincidental that you and Dr Caldicott were both pediatricians. I wonder if a certain type of specialist within the medical community gravitates to a movement of this kind, perhaps internists rather than surgeons. Well, actually, there's every single specialties represented.

I many movements, social oriented movements in the past that seem to have a predominance of, uh, pediatricians and psychiatrists. Uh, but there are world renowned internists, insurgents and, uh, public health doctors and psychiatrists in this movement, and it really is cutting across all specialties as well as all political perspectives.

Would you suspect that those who have joined I have already in their past lives exhibited a concern about human issues? They're sensitive to progressive movements to improve. A lot of mankind generally perhaps been involved in progressive political movement, you know, Actually, it's interesting that this is not a movement like that, And many of the people in it are first timers.

Oh, there renowned researchers and scientists and academicians who have never before uttered a public word other than their specific little research interest who are now going around the country talking about the dangers and consequences of nuclear war. Um, there are people who have been in practice in all sorts of communities, conservative and otherwise, who are for the first time in their lives, literally are seeing something that, uh, that overrides all other concerns and are feeling a need to get involved.

And they're forming local chapters in cities and speaking out within their home communities. Right there 180 local chapters with physicians general practitioners in practice for 25 years who are getting booked to make the tour of their local colonies and lions clubs and churches, etcetera. So it's it's really kind of an amazing situation.

And so you have a newsletter and other publications that you send out. You share information with physicians so that they would be prepared to speak to these issues in their local communities. Um, do you find that younger rather than older members joined up? That's really pretty mixed cuts across all age groups.

All disciplines within the medical family engages nurses to. Or is this strictly well, we associate membership is open to everybody. There are nurses and other medical technician type people involved in it does involve, uh, other just general supporters other than just the physicians and one last question about the A m A.

What is its attitude toward you if any has been expressed? The A. M. A House of Delegates last year passed a resolution stating that the consequences of thermonuclear war would be inconceivable and unacceptable, and that there would be no effective medical response to such an event where to happen.

Thank you very much, Doctor. Red liner For being with me on conversation. My guest has been Dr Irwin Redlener, who is chairman of the National Executive Committee of Physicians for Social Responsibility. Thank you very much. Okay. Mhm. Yeah.