World physicians issue medical appeal to Obama, Medvedev

Written 26/03/2009

MONDAY 23 MARCH 2009: On the eve of Prime Minister Rudd’s meeting with US President Barack Obama, more than 300 of the world’s top physicians have written to the US and Russian Presidents.

Their letter calls for US President Obama and Russian President Dmitri Medvedev to “end the nuclear weapons era once and for all.”

Prominent Australians to sign the letter include four Australians of the Year, Professors Fiona Stanley, Sir Gustav Nossal, Nobel laureate Peter Doherty and Ian Frazer.

The letter is signed by senior faculty and deans of medical schools, heads of medical associations, health ministers, medical journal editors, and Nobel laureates from 38 countries.

It will be delivered to Presidents Obama and Medvedev today by International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNWⁱ) and its US and Russian affiliates, Physicians for Social Responsibility, and Russian Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War.

Professor Fiona Stanley said, “The potential disastrous effects of nuclear weaponry not only on this generation but on the health of generations to come, demands that we have a complete ban.”

Sir Gustav Nossal also commented saying, “The major nuclear powers, USA, Russia, UK, and France, must give the lead for nuclear non-proliferation to be credible. There has never been a better time for large reductions in weapons stockpiles”.

Dr. Ira Helfand, a US physician who was a principal organizer of the campaign, said that the 25,000 nuclear weapons in the world’s arsenals are “the most urgent and immediate threat to the health and survival of humankind. And, unlike the other major health threats of our time — climate change, poverty, AIDS and other epidemic diseases — this one can be eradicated with nothing more than a firm decision to do so.”

Noting that a world without nuclear weapons is now championed by experts and diplomats across the political spectrum, the physicians called on the US and Russian presidents to lead the world by starting negotiations on a worldwide agreement “that will abolish all nuclear weapons.”

Associate Professor Tilman Ruff, Chair of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons said, “Prime Minister Rudd has an important opportunity to encourage and support President Obama who has placed nuclear abolition as a central priority of his foreign policy. Mr. Rudd has consistently argued that Australia wants to be a more active and multilaterally engaged middle power.”

Presidents Obama and Medvedev will meet for the first time in London on April 1, on the eve of the G-20 summit. Nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation measures, including proposals for substantial reductions in US and Russian nuclear arsenals, are expected to be high on their agenda.

In making the letter public today, IPPNW urged the leaders to put recent strains in US-Russian relations aside and to make the most of “what may be the best and last opportunity we have to rid the world of the only weapons capable of destroying all humanity.”

“A thousand years from now,” the signatories to the letter tell Presidents Obama and Medvedev, “no one will remember most of what you will do over the next few years; but no one will ever forget the leaders who abolished the threat of nuclear war.”

“Prime Minister Rudd’s meeting with the US President tomorrow could be of crucial importance in relation to nuclear weapons abolition. Mr. Rudd should fulfill the Labor Party’s election promise and support and advocate early negotiations for a nuclear weapons convention as outlined in the Labor Party’s national policy,” Associate Professor Ruff concluded.