Podcasts about international physicians

The will-he-or-won't-he game over Trump’s steel and alumnium tariffs is over. Turns out he will – despite the apparent offerings of the Australian Government. On this episode of After America, Dr Ruth Mitchell joins Dr Emma Shortis to discuss how Canada and Australia have responded to tariffs, what America’s decision to sell out Ukraine means for efforts to abolish nuclear weapons, and RFK Jr’s performance as Secretary of Health and Human Services. This discussion was recorded on Thursday 13 March 2025 and things may have changed since recording. Read more from Emma in the latest edition of Australian Foreign Affairs. Order What's the Big Idea? 32 Big Ideas for a Better Australia now, via the Australia Institute website. Guest: Ruth Mitchell, Board Chair, International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War // @drruthmitchell Host: Emma Shortis, Director, International & Security Affairs, the Australia Institute // @EmmaShortis Host: Angus Blackman, Producer, the Australia Institute // @AngusRB Show notes: How to deal with Trump: former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull, The Australia Institute on YouTube (July 2024) Why Russia’s aggression cannot be rewarded with Vasyl Myroshnychenko, After America, the Australia Institute (March 2025) Theme music: Blue Dot Sessions We’d love to hear your feedback on this series, so send in your questions, comments or suggestions for future episodes to podcasts@australiainstitute.org.au.Support After America: https://nb.australiainstitute.org.au/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We discuss brainworms, Elon's new gig, and why it's a really bad idea to micro-dose E. coli. Dr Ruth Mitchell, neurosurgeon and founding member of the Australian Nobel Prize-winning group, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, joins Dr Emma Shortis to discuss the global consequences of Trump's cabinet picks and what his election means for efforts to eradicate nuclear weapons. This discussion was recorded on Thursday 21 November and things may have changed since recording. Pre-order What's the Big Idea? 32 Big Ideas for a Better Australia now, via the Australia Institute website. australiainstitute.org.au // @theausinstitute Guest: Ruth Mitchell, Board Chair, International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War // @drruthmitchell Host: Emma Shortis, Director of International & Security Affairs, the Australia Institute // @EmmaShortis Show notes: Risky Business: An update on super funds and nuclear weapons by Rosemary Kelly and Margaret Beavis (September 2024) Super-powered nukes: Aussie funds and weapons of mass destruction, Follow the Money (October 2024) Theme music: Blue Dot Sessions Subscribe for regular updates from the Australia Institute. We'd love to hear your feedback on this series, so send in your questions, comments or suggestions for future episodes to podcasts@australiainstitute.org.au.Support After America: https://nb.australiainstitute.org.au/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A group of activists who have been walking for two weeks - over 200 km from Pugwash to Halifax - think we could do a lot more when it comes to peacekeeping and peacebuilding. Host Jeff Douglas spoke with two of the participants. Rajagopal P.V., who came all the way from India to participate in this walk. He is a former Vice Chairman of the Gandhi Peace Foundation, he trains young people in social action, and he promotes Gandhian philosophies of peace and non-violence.Lia Holla, a McGill student, youth advocate and the Executive Director of the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War Canada.

The application process and Match prospects are different for international medical graduates. IMG and veteran of the Match, Victor Kolade, MD, MS, FACP, offers a few tips and tricks for applicants. Find your IMG mentor with the AMA: https://www.ama-assn.org/education/international-medical-education/international-medical-graduates-img-toolkit-mentorship

As leaders in neurology, it is vital for our health care system to recruit and to retain and diverse workforce. Institutional advocacy for international medical graduates (IMGs) can improve retention efforts for a department both for patient care as well as for growth into global and diversified research networks. In this episode, we will discuss the pathway for an IMG to train and work in the US and some of the issues that it is important to know about to help promote the career success and satisfaction of international physicians.

This program recounts how American and Soviet physicians joined together on a mission to educate their governments and their peoples about the medical effects of nuclear war beginning in the early 1960s. Calculating the medical consequences of a nuclear war eventually led to the founding of the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, […]

"What gives me hope is people who have the guts to stand up … like you!""There's an urgency. The earth is in the intensive care unit - acutely ill.  We've got nothing to lose, and everything to gain from speaking up."This episode takes me to the essence of why I do what I do and why I speak up - the peace movement, my love of this planet, the political precariousness in which we dwell and my deep concern for our common future.Dr Helen Caldicott (from Melbourne near where I grew up)  is the world's most articulate and passionate advocate of citizen action to remedy the nuclear and environmental crises. She practices global preventative medicine and has spent 5 decades educating world leaders, influencers, physicians and communities of the impacts of the nuclear age - nuclear energy, nuclear war and nuclear disasters on the planet, on life, on humanity and the necessary changes in human behaviour to stop environmental destruction.. She's spoken Presidents, Prime Ministers, celebrities - even the Dalai Lama.At this point in time, she has never been more concerned. She warns that have never been closer to a major nuclear catastrophe at the same time as being in the midst of climate and biodiversity catastrophes.This is not easy to hear, but we must.  Let it move you, empower you, stoke the fires in your belly and let it rise up.The Smithsonian named Helen one of the most influential women of the 20th Century.  She taught at Harvard in the 70s and practiced at Children's hospitals around the world.  In 1980 she resigned and became a planetary physician.Helen has: written 7 booksreceived 21 honorary doctoratesbeen the subject of several films including the oscar-winning IF YOU LOVE THIS PLANETreceived multiple awards, and prizes - including the Nobel Peace Prize in 1985 as part of a international network - the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War When I was a teenager,   I was deeply motivated by Helen's work. I consider her a catalyst of my lifework. And like her, I am astounded that there is so little media attention while we teeter on the edge of nuclear catastrophe.Please listen and share this widely.  Follow Helen's work. Watch and share her film. Speak up. Show up.This podcast is an initiative of the Permaculture Education Institute .Our way of sharing our love for this planet and for life, is by teaching permaculture teachers who are locally adapting this around the world - finding ways to apply the planet care ethics of earth care, people care and fair share. We host global conversations and learning communities on 6 continents.We teach permaculture teachers, host permaculture courses, and free monthly permaculture film club and masterclass events. We broadcast from a solar powered studio in the midst of a permaculture ecovillage food forest. You can also watch Sense-Making in a Changing World on youtube.SUBSCRIBE for notification of each new episode & please leave us a 5 star REVIEW so our show will be recommended to others by the bots (really it does help for these conversations and ideas to myceliate). We acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land on which we live work and play and pay or respects to elders past and present. We are based on the unceded land of the Gubbi Gubbi .

It is 90 seconds to midnight on the Doomsday Clock. In large part due to developments in the war in Ukraine, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists  moved the hands of the infamous timepiece forward.Just weeks earlier the Department of Energy announced the first reported controlled fusion reaction that was touted as a breakthrough for national defense and the future of clean energy.Given the history of that lab, there is reason for skepticism.In this episode of Breaking Green we will talk with Dr. Helen Caldicott.Born in Melbourne, Australia in 1938, Dr Caldicott received her medical degree from the University of Adelaide Medical School in 1961. She founded the Cystic Fibrosis Clinic at the Adelaide Children's Hospital in 1975 and subsequently was an instructor in pediatrics at Harvard Medical School and on the staff of the Children's Hospital Medical Center, Boston, Mass., until 1980 when she resigned to work full time on the prevention of nuclear war.In 1971, Dr Caldicott played a major role in Australia's opposition to French atmospheric nuclear testing in the Pacific; in 1975 she worked with the Australian trade unions to educate their members about the medical dangers of the nuclear fuel cycle, with particular reference to uranium mining.While living in the United States from 1977 to 1986, she played a major role in re-invigorating as President,    Physicians for Social Responsibility, an organization of 23,000 doctors committed to educating their colleagues about the dangers of nuclear power, nuclear weapons and nuclear war. On trips abroad she helped start similar medical organizations in many other countries. The international umbrella group (International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War) won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1985. Dr Caldicott has received many prizes and awards for her work, including the Lannan Foundation's 2003 Prize for Cultural Freedom and twenty one  honorary doctoral degrees. She was personally nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by Linus Pauling – himself a Nobel Laureate. The Smithsonian has named Dr Caldicott as one of the most influential women of the 20th Century. Don't miss an episode and subscribe to Breaking Green wherever you get your podcasts.This podcast is produced by Global Justice Ecology Project.Breaking Green is made possible by tax deductible donations from people like you. Please help us lift up the voices of those working to protect forests, defend human rights and expose false solutions.  Simply text GIVE to 716-257-4187.

Japan is months away from releasing into the sea more than 1.2 million tons of radioactive wastewater accumulated from its crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant. Is the release really in line with international practice? How will it affect the environment and our health once the process begins? And what ramifications will it generate after the opening of the Pandora's box? Host Tu Yun is joined by Nobel laureate Dr. Tilman Ruff, infectious diseases and public health physician and Co-President of the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, Changhua Wu, Executive Director of the Professional Association for China's Environment, and Josef Mahoney, Professor of Politics and International Relations, East China Normal University on this episode of Chat Lounge.

Mary-Wynn Ashford has been an activist since 1984. She is the former President of International Physicians for Prevention of Nuclear War and continues now as a Board member. The Physicians for Prevention of Nuclear War won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1985. She has been a leader in the international peace and disarmament movement for over twenty years. Mary Wynn-Ashford is Author of 14 Publications, co-author With futurist and sustainability consultant, Guy Dauncey "Enough Blood Shed: 101 Solutions to Violence, Terror, and War. 1996. New Society Publishers. Translated into Japanese, 1997; Korean 2010. Kathy Kelly Kathy is an American peace activist, pacifist and author, and co-coordinator of Voices for Creative Nonviolence. As part of peace team work in several countries, she has traveled to Iraq twenty-six times, notably remaining in combat zones during the early days of both US–Iraq wars.

Nuclear weapons have only been used twice. Now Russia has hinted they could be used again. In this podcast episode, Inside Geneva host Imogen Foulkes asks experts how big the threat is. “This is the reality of nuclear deterrence: that there is a nuclear armed country that can hold the rest of the world hostage,” says Alicia Sanders-Zakre of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN).Have we forgotten how devastating these weapons are?“Blast, high-velocity projectile, trauma, burns, including bodies just melting into the ground,” says Ruth Mitchell of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW).What happens if a small tactical nuclear weapon is used?“There is no small nuclear weapon. All nuclear weapons have devastating, lasting, generational humanitarian consequences,” says Sanders-Zakre.What are the chances of a nuclear-free world now?“The abolition of nuclear weapons seems to be much more difficult and problematic than the fact of just saying: ‘it's against human rights, it's against humanitarian law',” says analyst Daniel Warner.Get in touch! Email us at insidegeneva@swissinfo.ch Twitter: @ImogenFoulkes and @swissinfo_en Thank you for listening! If you like what we do, please leave a review.

What are the 6 components of Wisdom? Why is wisdom important for relationships? We answer all these and more on today's episode of It Starts With Attraction!Today's Guest: Dilip Jeste, M.D.Dilip V. Jeste, M.D. is Former Senior Associate Dean for Healthy Aging and Senior Care and Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry and Neurosciences at University of California San Diego. He obtained his medical education in Pune, and psychiatry training in Mumbai, India. In the US, he completed psychiatry residency at Cornell, and Neurology residency at George Washington University. He was a research fellow, and later, Chief of the Units on Movement Disorders and Dementias at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) before joining UC San Diego where he retired in July 2022.He started a Geriatric Psychiatry program from scratch at UC San Diego; it became one of the largest Geriatric Psychiatry Divisions in the world. Dr. Jeste has been Principal Investigator on a number of research and training grants. His main areas of research include schizophrenia, neuropsychiatric interventions, and successful aging. He has published 14 books, including his most recent book entitled “Wiser”, over 750+ articles in peer-reviewed journals, and 160+ invited book chapters. He was listed in “The Best Doctors in America” and in the Institute of Scientific Information list of the “world's most cited authors” comprising fewer than 0.5% percent of all publishing researchers of the previous two decades. Dr. Jeste has received many awards including NIMH's MERIT Award; Commendation for Dedicated Service from the Veterans Affairs; and awards from Society of Biological Psychiatry; APA; Institute of Living; American College of International Physicians; National Alliance on Mental Illness; National Alliance for Research in Schizophrenia and Affective Disorders; American College of Psychiatrists; International Psychogeriatric Association; Universities of Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, and Maryland, and Cornell. He has also received Honorary Fellowship, the highest honor it bestows, from UK's Royal College of Psychiatrists; and Honorary Professorship from Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia, Lima, Peru.Links Mentioned:Book: amazon.com/Wiser-Scientific-Roots-Wisdom-Compassion/dp/1683644638Website: dilipjestemd.comWebsite: aging.ucsd.eduTedMed: tedmed.com/speakers/show?id=526374Your Host: Kimberly Beam Holmes, Expert in Self-Improvement and RelationshipsKimberly Beam Holmes has applied her master's degree in psychology for over ten years, acting as the CEO of Marriage Helper & CEO and Creator of PIES University, being a wife and mother herself, and researching how attraction affects relationships. Her videos, podcasts, and following reach over 200,000 people a month who are making changes and becoming the best they can be.Website: www.kimberlybeamholmes.comTake the Attraction AssessmentThanks for listening!Connect on Instagram: @kimberlybeamholmesBe sure to SUBSCRIBE to the podcast and leave a review!Visit marriagehelper.com/drjoe to sign up for the in-person workshop on November 18-20

On September 26 th , Molly McGinty, Associate Program Director of the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, spoke at the United Nations.Listen to a portion here. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/ccnsupdate/support

A new study in Nature Food has revealed, once again, the unprecedented danger of nuclear weapons. Built on the foundation of decades of research, it's about the climate change and global famine that would follow even a limited nuclear exchange.The models are a terrifying warning. A limited war between Pakistan and India that uses just three percent of the world's nuclear weapons could kill a third of the Earth's population.In this special edition of Cyber, we talk about the study, its implications, and what we can do to avoid tragedy. Here with me to have that discussion is one of the author's behind the study, Rutgers University climatologist Alan Robock.Robock will lay out what he and his colleagues found in just a moment, to help us understand what actions we should take is Dr. Ruth Mitchell from the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War and Alicia Sanders-Zakre from the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons.Stories discussed in this episode:A Nuclear War Between the U.S. and Russia Would Starve 5 Billion PeopleWe're recording CYBER live on Twitch. Watch live during the week. Follow us there to get alerts when we go live. We take questions from the audience and yours might just end up on the show.Subscribe to CYBER on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your podcasts. Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information.

A new study in Nature Food has revealed, once again, the unprecedented danger of nuclear weapons. Built on the foundation of decades of research, it's about the climate change and global famine that would follow even a limited nuclear exchange.The models are a terrifying warning. A limited war between Pakistan and India that uses just three percent of the world's nuclear weapons could kill a third of the Earth's population.In this special edition of Cyber, we talk about the study, its implications, and what we can do to avoid tragedy. Here with me to have that discussion is one of the author's behind the study, Rutgers University climatologist Alan Robock.Robock will lay out what he and his colleagues found in just a moment, to help us understand what actions we should take is Dr. Ruth Mitchell from the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War and Alicia Sanders-Zakre from the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons.Stories discussed in this episode:A Nuclear War Between the U.S. and Russia Would Starve 5 Billion PeopleWe're recording CYBER live on Twitch. Watch live during the week. Follow us there to get alerts when we go live. We take questions from the audience and yours might just end up on the show.Subscribe to CYBER on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your podcasts. Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information.

Guest: Dr. Makini McGuire-Brown, chair of International Physicians of Ontario With emergency rooms closing due to staff shortages and a critical lack of family doctors across the country, many internationally trained doctors who have immigrated to Canada are asking why it's so difficult for them to practice medicine here. From a lack of residency positions to programs that help them transition to our health care systems, these doctors say a valuable human resource is not being tapped as the health care system gets closer to a breaking point. This episode was produced by Alexis Green, Matthew Hearn and Raju Mudhar Audio Sources: CPAC

Helen Caldicott, a graduate of the University of Adelaide School of Medicine, was a faculty member of Harvard Medical School and in 1974 founded the Cystic Fibrosis Clinic at Adelaide Children's hospital. In 1971 she played a major role in Australia's opposition to French atmospheric nuclear testing in the Pacific.While at Harvard in the early 1980s, she helped to reinvigorate, as its president, Physicians for Social Responsibility, an organization of 23,000 doctors committed to educating their colleagues about the dangers of nuclear power, nuclear weapons and nuclear war. On trips abroad she helped start similar medical organizations in many other countries; their umbrella group, International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1985. She also founded the Women's Action for Nuclear Disarmament (WAND) in the US in 1980.The author or editor of eight books including Nuclear Madness, Missile Envy, and, most recently, Sleepwalking to Armageddon, she has been the recipient of many awards and honorary degrees, the subject of three award-winning documentary films, and was named one of the 20th Century's most influential women by the Smithsonian Institution.She makes her home nowadays in her native Australia.https://www.helencaldicott.com/The Douglas Coleman Show now offers audio and video promotional packages for music artists as well as video promotional packages for authors. We also offer advertising. Please see our website for complete details. http://douglascolemanshow.comIf you have a comment about this episode or any other, please click the link below.https://ratethispodcast.com/douglascolemanshow

Richard Denton, Barbara Birkett, and Neil Arya are all Canadian physicians who are deeply engaged in International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War Canada and concerned to end the war in Ukraine. The people they know are overwhelmingly in favor of Ukraine, but now worrying that Russia is likely to win the war and keep Ukrainian territory. We discuss ways of overcoming the Security Council veto so as to impose a globally-satisfactory solution. What would happen if the Security Council did pass a motion requiring Russia to withdraw? Would Putin comply? When then? For the video, audio podcast, transcript and public comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-464-health-and-war-in-ukraine. Then share your thoughts in the comment column.

Insight and inspiration are vital for the important mission for peace through awareness and action to minimize the threats from nuclear weapons to people and our planet. How do we verify and respond to the complex reality of nuclear weapons and the humanitarian consequences? How can innovative technologies engage on a personal level and in society at large? Listen to the conversation between: Dr. Carlos Umaña, Co-President of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, Nobel Peace Prize laureate from 1985 Dr. Tamara Lilinoe Patton, Stanton Nuclear Security Post-doctoral Fellow, MIT and Executive Producer of “The morning you wake to the end of the world” Mette Vågnes Eriksen, Secretary General, Norwegian Polytechnic Society This episode is part of the 2022 Summit on the Modern-Day Nuclear Threat and How to Respond at the Nobel Peace Center in Oslo, in collaboration with ICAN Norway, NORSAR and Games for Change. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

SUMMARY HEADS UP producer Jo de Vries shares her personal story of healing from acute anxiety attacks that started when she was 12 years old. Now in her sixties, and after 20 years of taking two psychotrophic medications, she is in the process of healing with the help of two medical professionals. Family physician/psychotherapist Dr. Warren Bell guides her along a path of discovery to unearth her disorder's root causes, while pharmacist Sahil Ahuja advises her on how to safely taper off medication. In this compelling episode, they dig into how Jo's experiences can inform and inspire others, and explore arguments made by acclaimed journalist and author Johann Hari in Lost Connections, the book that kick-started Jo's empowering encounter with herself and the outside world. TAKEAWAYS This podcast showcases: Personal stories of healing from anxiety and depression Progressive education for pharmacists The role of personalized care and holistic healing from mental health challenges Primary considerations for deciding whether to take medication for depression/anxiety Potential side effects of some medications for depression/anxiety Potential side effects of, and recommendations for, tapering off those medications Role of psychotherapy and other treatments for depression/anxiety Role of trauma and chronic stress in depression/anxiety Benefits of feeling, identifying, processing, and learning from both positive and negative emotions Impacts of COVID on people's willingness to talk about mental health challenges Johann Hari's personal story of depression and arguments for science-based alternatives he subsequently laid out in Lost Connections: Uncovering the Real Causes of Depression & the Unexpected Solutions Using science to debunk the myth that chemical imbalance is responsible for anxiety/depression, and that medication is the only solution Disconnection (the nine causes of anxiety/depression) Reconnection (a different kind of antidepressant) Role of culture in sharing about, and healing from, anxiety/depression Role of livable communities that support the social determinants of mental health in preventing anxiety/depression SPONSOR   RESOURCES Antidepressants Going off Antidepressants Bounceback Patient Health Questionnaire Depression: Resource Guide for Patients   GUESTS  Sahil Ahuja, PharmD Sahil Ahuja is a licensed pharmacist practising at Two Nice Guys Pharmacy in Kelowna, BC. In this setting he provides patient-centered care that starts with listening to the person in front of him. In collaboration with that patient's health care team, Sahil provides a range of services including patient education, medication recommendations, and prescriptions. While completing his Doctor of Pharmacy degree at UBC, Sahil encountered mental health struggles of his own. Having made it through those difficult times, he believes the best way to reduce any remaining stigma around mental health is by openly sharing his own experiences. Professionally, Sahil's current focus is on the Toxic Drug Crisis and ensuring patients experiencing substance-use disorders have reliable and non-judgemental access to medication. These efforts have helped Two Nice Guys' Pharmacy earn recognition as Unsung Heroes in the community. In his personal life, he is prioritizing trying new hobbies and experiences (e.g., skydiving) to continuously expand his comfort zone. Dr. Warren Bell Dr. Warren Bell has been a general practitioner for more than 40 years. For decades he has advocated for peace, social development, the environment, and the anti-nuclear movement, as well as the integration of healing modalities of all kinds. He is past founding president of Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment, past president of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War Canada and the Association of Complementary and Integrative Physicians of BC, past president of medical staff at the Shuswap Lake General Hospital, and current president of Wetland Alliance: The Ecological Response (WA:TER). He has written several peer-reviewed clinical pieces and for online publications such as the Vancouver Observer and National Observer. Warren received a College of Family Physicians of Canada Environmental Health Award and the Queen's Medal for Canada's 125th Anniversary in 1992.  Email: cppbell@web.ca Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/warren.bell.714 HOST Jo de Vries is a community education and engagement specialist with more 30 years of experience helping local governments in British Columbia connect with their citizens about important sustainability issues. In 2006, she established the Fresh Outlook Foundation (FOF) to “inspire community conversations for sustainable change.” FOF's highly acclaimed events include Building SustainABLE Communities conferences, Reel Change SustainAbility Film Fest, Eco-Blast Kids' Camps, CommUnity Innovation Lab, Breakfast of Champions, and Women 4 SustainAbility. FOF's newest ventures are the HEADS UP! Community Mental Health Summit and HEADS UP! Community Mental Health Podcast. Website: Fresh Outlook Foundation Phone: 250-300-8797   PLAY IT FORWARD The move toward optimal mental health becomes possible as more people learn about the challenges, successes, and opportunities. To that end, please share this podcast with anyone who has an interest or stake in the future of mental health and wellness. FOLLOW US For more information about the Fresh Outlook Foundation (FOF) and our programs and events, visit our website, sign up for our newsletter, and like us on Facebook and Twitter.   HELP US As a charity, FOF relies on support from grants, sponsors, and donors to continue its valuable work. If you benefited from the podcast, please help fund future episodes by making a one-time or monthly donation. Sahil Ahuga and Dr. Warren Bell Interview Transcript You can download a pdf of the transcript here. The entire transcript is also found below: RICK  0:10 Welcome to the Heads Up Community Mental Health podcast. Join our host Jo de Vries with the Fresh Outlook Foundation, as she combines science with storytelling to explore a variety of mental health issues with people from all walks of life. Stay tuned. JO  0:32 Hey, Jo here. Thanks for joining me and my two special guests as we delve into my own story of healing from anxiety attacks that started when I was 12 years old. Now 67, and after multiple rounds of medication, the latest one lasting almost 20 years, I'm in the process of seeking freedom from fear and anxiety with help from two medical professionals. The first is Dr. Warren Bell, a GP who also practices psychotherapy in Salmon Arm, BC. He's guiding me along a path of discovery to find the root causes of my disorder. Hi, Warren. Warren  1:12 Hi, Jo, I'm delighted to be here. And I just like to say that the fact that you are sharing your story in this public way is an act of courage on the one hand, but it's also something that I think will lead to many other people who listen to this podcast, understanding your dilemma and the trials you've been through, and also be grateful for the fact that you have shared this very personal voyage that you've been on. JO  1:41 The other vital member of my team is pharmacist Sahil Ahuja, who's advising me on how to safely taper off two medications. Welcome Sahil. SAHIL  1:52 Hi Jo. Thank you for having me. Likewise, very grateful to have this opportunity, and appreciative that you're willing to share your story. We talk a lot about decreasing stigma around these concerns. I think this will be beneficial to a lot of people. JO  2:07 I can't tell you how grateful I am to have you both on my side and here today for the podcast. Two things before we get started. First, a big thank you to our sponsors for this episode, the Social Planning and Research Council of BC, Emil Anderson Construction, WorkSafeBC and AECOM Engineering. And second, please note that I'm sharing my story for informational purposes only. This is very important. If you're experiencing mental health challenges or want to taper off medication, please seek advice from your doctor and/or mental health professional. Okay, so imagine you're lying down tied to a railway track. You start to feel vibrations in the ties and a hum on the rails that can mean only one thing, a coming train. As it rounds the corner, you hear the whistle scream warning you to jump or else, but you can't. As the scenario unfolds, your breathing shallows while your heart rate spikes. You feel increasingly weak, dizzy, sweaty, and/or nauseated. You quickly move from feeling agitated to being terrified you'll die, and then maybe even wishing you would so the overwhelming physical and emotional sensations would stop. After what could be minutes or hours, the train roars over you, the danger seemingly past, but in its place comes the fear of what will happen next time you're tied to a track, or more likely must give a speech, or take an exam, or feel uncomfortable, insecure, or unworthy. That's anxiety's gift that keeps on giving. The continual fear of fear itself. My panic attacks started when I entered puberty when my hormones raged for the first time. My second bout was triggered again by a hormonal imbalance after the birth of my first daughter. That time it was more serious and involved depression as well. To make a long story short, I started thinking, what if I hurt my daughter and then spiraled into terror so visceral, I couldn't be alone for fear I'd go crazy and do the unthinkable. I was trapped in a vicious cycle. Feeling depressed made me more anxious and feeling anxious worsened the depression. My father who was a doctor said I was experiencing postpartum depression and prescribed an antidepressant. I also saw a psychiatrist who said that with the medication, I would recover. That's how it was done in 1983. No mention of lifestyle changes, counseling, or other potential treatments. The pills worked, so I took them until after my second daughter was born, too afraid to again face postpartum symptoms. When life settled down and my marriage and career seemed stable, I weaned off the medication and managed well for a number of years. My next experience with paralyzing fear came at the end of my first marriage, emotions were high, my anxiety levels were higher. Again, I was prescribed medication, this time by my GP. I did get counseling, but unfortunately, the counselor decided my husband was a jerk, and that I'd be better off without him. So I concluded the anxiety was situational, and didn't see the need for further counseling to get to its root causes. Fast forward to the beginning of my second marriage. I'm feeling good and decided to taper off medication again, which was fine until I accepted a job that turned into the worst experience of my working life. Eighteen months later, just after I resigned, I descended into what can only be described as hell on Earth. I lived in the emotional storm of an acute, unending, anxiety attack for three days. I couldn't think, I couldn't eat or drink without vomiting. I couldn't be alone for fear I would die. And at times, I wished I would because I didn't think I could stand another minute. I was prescribed three medications in large doses. A benzodiazepine for sleep, an antidepressant, and an antipsychotic, which is sometimes used to treat anxiety and depression when just the antidepressant isn't enough. Well, I don't regret taking the medications as they dulled the anxiety and lifted the depression to manageable levels. They did make me look and feel somewhat like a zombie for a number of months. With that first stage of recovery under my belt, I started thinking again about tapering off my medications. Like many other people who take them, I thought I was weak and wanted to prove to myself that I wasn't. First, I tapered off the sleeping pill. Then I significantly reduced the antipsychotic but decided to stay on the same dose of antidepressant, and there I sat for almost 20 years. In the early years, I tried a few times to wean off the antidepressant, but always experienced low-level anxiety and other minor side effects such as disturbing dreams. Mainly though, I was still afraid of being afraid, not wanting to look inside to find what was hiding there. Fast forward again to a little more than a year ago when I was 65. I must have been ready for a change of perspective, because a transformational book came across my desk while I was researching a Heads Up podcast about depression. It's called Lost Connections, Uncovering the Real Causes of Depression, and the Unexpected Solutions. It's by John Hari, an award-winning journalist and best selling author who has an experience of depression that he weaves throughout his book. Hari's book made me look at my situation differently through a lens of evidence-based findings, on the effectiveness of medication for depression and/or anxiety. And it made me question the medical system's long-standing pharmaceutical approach to symptom management, and the crutch it had perhaps become for me. So with input from Warren and Sahil, I developed a plan for tapering off the medications. I felt ready given that my life is now vastly different than it was 20 years ago, and that I'm truly invested in optimizing my physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual health. The three of us agreed that tapering off should be done very slowly. Given that I'd been on hefty doses for almost two decades. And because I'd had side effects when I last tried to cut down. You'll learn more about this from Warren and Sahil a little later. Starting last spring, I cut my antipsychotic medication over several months by almost 90 percent. It surprised me that I experienced no anxiety during that time, and it thrilled me that I felt increasingly more energetic and alive as the doses dropped. I delayed tapering down from the antidepressant until this spring, given that winter can be a challenging time for me. In April, I reduced the dose of my antidepressant a small amount. As with previous tapering attempts, I felt stirrings of anxiety and had vivid, sometimes disturbing dreams. But I persisted and that past. A week or so ago, I tapered down again, and I'll stay on that dose for a month or so before deciding whether to cut down further. That's slower tapering than people typically do. But I'm fine with that. Most importantly, Warren, Sahil, and I agreed that I needed to be realistic about my ability to taper off completely. I've accepted that and we'll take this process one day at a time, watching for symptoms that might be too much for me. I realized I may have to take medication for the rest of my life. And I have no shame or guilt around that. Nor should you if you're on medication that improves your mental health and quality of life. My journey of finding freedom from fear and anxiety has led me to new places, both within myself and in the world around me. I've embraced proven science while being embraced by compassionate care. I now have feelings that are big, and raw, and real, and so welcome now that I understand they're to be revered, not feared. As Eleanor Roosevelt recommended, I also try to do one thing every day that scares me. Today, it's being vulnerable by sharing my story, which I hope will inspire you to get the help you need. If you're struggling, start by making an appointment with your doctor and/or a mental health professional. And please check out the resources in the Show Notes page on our website at freshoutlookfoundation.org/podcasts. Time now to bring in the experts who can add some meat to the bones of my story, and John Hari's book. Let's start with you Sahil. I found you at Two Nice Guys Pharmacy in Kelowna, BC. Great name by the way. My daughter recommended this because of your amazing, personalized service. We met, and you agreed to help me taper off the medications. You also promised to read Hari's book and then share your insights on this podcast. Let's start by you telling us your story, and why you find such meaning in helping people along their healing journeys. SAHIL  12:31 I'm glad that you've had a good experience. I've never had someone ask me to read a book and be on their podcast. So, it was a neat experience for me as well. My story, the part that's kind of relevant to the mental health conversation here, is that in undergrad I was in sciences and living at home in Kelowna, going to UBCO. And everything was good. But when I was accepted into pharmacy school, and I had to move to Vancouver and go into this Doctor of Pharmacy Professional program, that's where things started to unravel a little bit, I would say. When I moved away, it was great. I was living with one of my friends. But in those first couple of months of being away from home and being in a new program and in a new city, I started to feel a lot of discomfort. I remember times when I was studying, and I couldn't focus anymore on the slides in front of me, and I would have to go lie down. Eventually, I got to the point of having a conversation with my doctor, and we realized that I was having panic attacks, which was very foreign to me. And the identity that I had for myself of being this high achieving person who just is able to do anything and everything, and to have that, quote unquote, what I felt as a setback was tough to process. And I wasn't able to really get a handle on the anxiety in those first few months, then kind of depression was becoming a part of that as well. And they are sometimes related but also very distinct things, and I felt the distinctions there. I eventually started on medications, and I found them to be very helpful. I remember in those first few months of being on fluoxetine that I felt that if everyone was taking this medication, that there would be less crime in the world, everyone be happier. It was amazing. But as in the book, I had a similar experience as the author where that effect faded, and then we would increase the dose I would feel well, and the effect would fade. And that cycle continued whether with new medications or new doses for a few years. And then near the end of pharmacy school, I was getting tired of it. And I tapered myself off the medications and it took probably a year after that for me to feel like okay, I'm actually through this phase of anxiety and depression. It was interesting for me because I subscribed very heavily to the chemical imbalance narrative, in part because I had everything else going for me in life. I had amazing support systems in my family and friends. Even though I had left my family, they were still very supportive. And I had friends there. I had a great career ahead of me with meaningful work. It didn't make sense to me. And that was one of the most frustrating parts of like, why am I feeling this way. So, the chemical imbalance narrative really helped, to be like hey, it is out of your control, but kind of working through it and getting through it. I think it was the purposelessness that really got me and meaning to life that got me, and I found it in social connections, I found it in really savoring the moments that I have with friends. Meaningful conversations like this one, when you're 40 minutes into a cup of coffee with someone, I find so much meaning and joy in those moments, and I soak in that joy. And I would say it's still a work in progress. And not every day is a great day. But I definitely have much more joy in my life. I have more good days than bad days, and the bad days aren't as bad anymore. JO  16:00 Thank you so much for being vulnerable and laying that out for us. And I agree your story too will help other people. How has your experience impacted in a positive way your ability to help your clients who are experiencing mental health challenges? SAHIL  16:17 I think my experience gives me an insight into what the human in front of me is experiencing. I understand how difficult it is to even get to the point of standing at the pharmacy counter. There are so many pieces in between one of just recognizing and understanding what's happening that took me a bit of time, then being willing to address that concern and eventually talking to a physician or whichever healthcare provider getting to the point of like, okay, I have this prescription in my hand, am I going to go fill it? Okay, I go drop it off at the pharmacy counter, am I gonna go back? There's so many points there, where things could fall off or the mind could change. So when that person is in front of me, I have a sense of like, okay, it was not easy to get here. And I want to make sure that I can hopefully make it a bit easier moving forward. JO  17:13 Sahil, before meeting you, my interactions with pharmacists had been what I call clinical, which I guess is fair. But the training you received is changing that. Tell us more. SAHIL  17:26 I graduated in 2019 from UBCs PharmD program, and it is very patient-centered care. We are not just looking at the condition and throwing a medication at it. We're looking at the human that's in front of us and saying okay, this condition is part of what's going on. But let's look at everything else that's going on. And as a pharmacist, our training, the first thing we even think about is, is a medication even necessary, is it even the best treatment? For example, in school, we were being assessed when we were counseling a medication to a patient. We had to give three or four non-medication ways, non-drug measures to help address any particular concern, whether its mental health related or blood pressure or cholesterol. Those non-pharm measures or non-drug measures are very important, and the first line of therapy, frankly, in the majority of conditions. If those don't work, then we look at medication. JO  18:22 When you say patient-centered or personalized care, what does that mean? SAHIL  18:28 It's about assessing what's important to them and what their values are, depending on whether they're in school, what their age is, what their priorities are. It can help us guide the antidepressant we choose, for example, because depending on their side effect profiles, some side effects, for example weight gain, may be acceptable to some and not acceptable to others. So that's where the personalized approach comes in of, okay, let me learn about this person, what's important to them. And then we can make more informed decisions together and give them the appropriate information. JO  19:02 When you speak to your clients first about taking antidepressants, what do you tell them? SAHIL  19:07 Sometimes the majority of the times the benefits aren't immediate. And that's really frustrating when you're living through anxiety and depression. You're feeling unwell in all these ways to hear that, hey, I'm gonna have to stick through this for another 246 weeks before I really feel better. So that's one thing, it is a bit of a process. And also, the first one may not be the right one. We have a lot of options. We have a lot of medications that work in different ways that have different side effect profiles. So we can hopefully over time find the right one. And the things that probably do work more immediately are those non-drug measures, whether it's starting to look at CBT, and there's a lot of free CBT resources out there, whether it's from Anxiety Canada or MindHealthBC? Maybe the first line of therapy is being more mindful about hanging out with your friends, which is really difficult to do when you're living through it. But if there's a way that you can go for that cup of coffee and feel a little bit better, or go for that walk in nature and feel that sense of calm, those things might be more immediately soothing, and that will give the medication some time to kick in. JO  20:18 What about the primary potential side effects? SAHIL  20:24 There's a whole host of things depending on the medication that you take. So to say main potential side effects is a little bit tricky. And everything's in context as well. So I always hesitate from saying things broadly. But I will say some of the big things to watch out for is that, especially in younger patients, there is an increased risk of self-harm. And that's something that is top of mind for me. So when I am talking to my patients I, especially younger patients, I'd like to mention this is something that we've got to watch out for. There's regular things like nausea, and dizziness, and all of these things that usually, we can help mitigate or get better as the weeks go on. Certain ones might have a higher risk of sexual dysfunction, for example, others have very limited risk of that. Some have a little bit of risk of weight gain, and others are less. Some cause trouble sleeping, some help more with sleeping. That's why the personalization part is really important. If I have a patient who has insomnia with depression, then we want something that causes drowsiness, depending on if that's what they want. If we have somebody that they are unable to get out of bed at all, they're sleeping 12 plus hours a day or whatever, and I was on that side I would sleep all day long, we want something that might have energized them a little bit more, a little bit more activating. Side effects are also tricky term because sometimes that effect is something we want to happen. So it's very personalized and patient specific. JO  21:51 What about side effects associated with tapering off, and your tips for minimizing these? SAHIL  21:58 What I've seen in my short career so far practicing for a couple years is we really want to take it slow; we want to go over weeks or months. And that will help minimize the withdrawal symptoms. So it can be some of the things that patients experienced in the beginning, maybe some dizziness, or the strange one to me that I wouldn't think about is flu like symptoms. People can actually feel unwell in that way. There can be some irritability, appetite affects, sleep changes. You might even feel that irritability or depression coming back, but sometimes it's temporary, right? It's just the body getting used to not having the medication. And it's not necessarily that the depression is actually coming back. The other one that I hear patients talk about sometimes even if they miss a dose or two, is brains zaps or just that abnormal sensation there. These are the things to look out for. And if they're happening, this is how we can manage it or just even knowing that something can happen, helps mitigate the surprise of when it happens and makes it less scary in that way. JO  22:59 Thanks Sahil. That's great info and will really help me by the way, which brings us to our next guest, Dr. Warren Bell and his decades-long practice of combining medical and pharmaceutical knowledge with psychotherapy and downhome compassion. Just building on what Sahil was explaining to us, what do you see in the way of side effects or symptoms of people tapering off of these medications? Warren  23:29 The principle that Sahil referred to, which is to do it slowly, is probably more important than any other principle with respect to withdrawing or tapering off medication of this nature, psychotropic drugs. People experience a variety of symptoms when they start to reduce medication, including symptoms that are very similar to the ones that they experienced before they began to take them. These are withdrawal symptoms, but they seem to be very similar to what they experienced prior to starting medication. And as a consequence, there's a sense that maybe their condition that led to them taking medication has recurred. But it's actually a withdrawal process. And the best way to deal with it is to do it very slowly. I've had people who were withdrawn off medication in six weeks by one of my psychiatric colleagues, experience a terrible withdrawal pattern. And when I was involved with repeating it, because they cut back on the medication, we changed it from a six-week withdrawal to a two year withdrawal, and it was effortless. JO  24:36 I'd like to build on Sahil's insights about patient-centered care. You and I have talked about your practice of getting to know people in the round, versus using only biomedical measures for treatment. Why don't you share your story of integrating treatment modalities and how it's helped your patients with mental health challenges? Warren  25:00 My background prior to medicine was not pure sciences. My background was actually, believe it or not, music and creative writing. So I had a sort of artsy kind of perspective on life. So when I came to medicine, it was with a very different perspective from many of my fellow students. I understood science, but it wasn't the only thing that I had studied. As I went through medical school, I found the narrow approach on biomedical matters and physical health issues, to be challenging, because I was only too aware of my own psychological responses. So early on in my training program, one of my preceptors, who was the head of psychiatry at McGill, noticed that I had a bit of an aptitude for exploring the psychological experiences that people were having. And that led to learning about different kinds of approach to therapeutic interventions in that area. And I eventually fastened on a procedure, or a process, or an approach called short-term anxiety provoking psychotherapy, which at the time, short-term meant 12 to 15 visits as opposed to two years of weekly visits that psychoanalysis was focused around. So it was shorter term, but it was still longer term than what is commonly done with psychiatrists these days. And after I had graduated, I worked in a psychiatric outpatient clinic for a year, and I also engaged in palliative care. Much of it is intensely psychologically oriented. When I came back to BC and began practicing in the small town of Salmon Arm, I just felt the need for a variety of reasons to explore other modalities. And I embarked on what amounted to a 20- 25-year process of learning about every kind of therapeutic opportunity that there is ranging from physical interventions like manual therapies, massage, cranial-sacral therapy, chiropractic, and of course physiotherapy, one of the standards, and osteopathy, and then also mind approaches. Sahil mentioned CBT, which is a fairly formulaic form of psychological intervention, but it's been used and has been validated as having some value. But then there's other things like yoga and meditation and mindfulness. And side-by-side with them was the process that I was bringing into my practice, which is insight-oriented therapy, where you spend a long time asking challenging questions and essentially, having patient hear themselves say things that they haven't said before, and understanding things inside their own consciousness that are new, and developing insights. That way, it's not a system where I give people advice. It's a system where I probe, and their responses end up being their therapy. And I've done it now for over 45 years. So it's been a central part of what I do, because once you explore people's minds, you find out what they are like, as you said, in the round. You find out more of the totality of their life experiences, not just the disease, or the condition, or the injury that they present with. So it inevitably makes you think holistically when you approach anybody. JO  28:42 During my psychotherapy sessions, we talk about many things including the mental health impacts of my upbringing, my Type A personality, my perfectionism, and so on. But my biggest takeaway was the realization that I bottled up what I thought were negative emotions for decades, only acknowledging and sharing the positive side of myself. Warren, you along with Brene Brown taught me to sit with my not so nice feelings, to really feel them, and then to identify them, process them, and maybe most importantly, learn from them. I'll give you a simple example of that. About six months ago, I was cleaning out my kitchen cupboards, and I came across a set of china that I had inherited when my Mom passed away. And it brought back wonderful memories of Easter dinners, and Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners and us all around the tables. And my mom loved those occasions. She loved her crystal, she loved her china, and her cutlery, and everything was set so beautifully, and she was so proud. And I decided that I really didn't have room for this china anymore. So I called my sister and I said, you have a lot more room, would you like this china? And she said, sure. I went downstairs, got some boxes, brought them up, and I started packing away this china. And I started feeling increasingly more sad, to the point where I started crying, which is really unusual for me because I'm not a crier. And I just felt worse and worse and worse. And so I went and lay down. And I started thinking about the china and what it meant to me and came to the conclusion that I didn't want to give it away. I really needed to keep this as a connection to my mother. So I packed up the china and I put it in this very special place, and decided that I'm going to use it on occasion, even if it's not a special occasion. So that, for me, was a cathartic experience of feeling something, identifying what it is, processing it, and then responding in a way that met my emotional needs. It has really played a remarkable role in my healing. I've said all that to ask this question. Warren, in the patients you've seen over the years who are experiencing anxiety or depression, what role do you see unprocessed negative emotions playing? Warren  31:34 They play a central role, because they embody things that are unresolved in one's own life experience. There is a social pressure on all of us to hold back expression of any kind of negativity. If you meet somebody in the street and they say, hi how are you, you don't say, well actually I'm having a really bad day, and let me tell you about it. Partly because we know that the chance of them stopping and paying attention to those remarks will be very limited, they might be frightened away. But also, it seems like exposing ourselves to having other people see the vulnerability in us. And so it's quite natural, at a social level in many social situations to suppress the expression of negative feelings, fear, anger, frustration, terror, all experiences which we define as negative. What they are, of course, is responses of our central nervous system to things that are troubling to us, that disrupt our lives, or that appear to threaten our security. When you do that, and those experiences come to the surface, as you described in the story about your mother's china, you often will experience an emotional reaction that takes you by surprise. And if it's the wrong kind of setting, for example, there's a bunch of people looking at you and you're on stage, and you happen to open your mother's china there, you would be under intense emotional pressure internally, to not start to weep on stage. Now, if it was a psychotherapeutic group therapy session, you wouldn't have that same feeling. But if you're on stage, and it's a public performance, you would feel horrified at the fact that you were losing emotional grip on yourself. So setting has a lot to do with it. And often in our early years, we have settings where we are discouraged from expressing our true reactions to things. A parent who tried to be helpful says, "Don't make so much noise in this room, keep quiet." You don't know why they want you to do it, but they tell you to do it. And you want to make a big noise, you feel full of exuberant energy, and you can't do it. And so you learn to put those feelings and that expression away. And then you get into a situation where you start to cheer at a sports event and suddenly you are feeling giddy, you feeling strange and kind of uncomfortable, and maybe a little anxious, like I'm being too exuberant. I'm expressing my feelings too vigorously. So what the negative emotions that are suppressed or unprocessed do is they influence a lot of our day-to-day behavior. But much of that behavior as an experience is of feeling anxious, or in this case that you just described, you feel sad, but they are highly legitimate emotional responses that are present in us when we're first born. And so to suppress them tends to be kind of unhealthy. It's not so much that you express them anywhere. You find out where it's appropriate to express them as you grow older, but you don't get rid of them. That's the key I think. SAHIL  34:38 I'm going to jump in here just to add a little bit more of my story and how I think processing those emotions helped out. When I originally had my symptoms, I felt defective in a sense. It's interesting how you would never think that of somebody else but when it's yourself, there's more harsh judgment, something that I have worked through thankfully. But I went on a self-improvement binge. And in doing so, I think developed a little bit more EQ, emotional intelligence, and self-awareness. With that self-awareness, I noticed and was actually able to see those negative emotions, sit with them, and process them in ways that you two have mentioned. So I think it's extremely important to get to that point where you can recognize and deal with what's happening. JO  35:23 What about the role of chronic stress and depression and anxiety? Warren  35:29 Chronic stress is usually the result of a habit. We live by habits, our lives are guided by habits, habits are shorthand ways of dealing with events that occur over and over again in our lives, and that we have to develop a sort of patterned response to. If there are patterned responses to all or most expressions of a certain part of our own inner world that is valuable and important to us, then it produces a chronic state of feeling anxious, depressed, or just out of sorts. Because we're putting aside a part of ourselves on a day-to-day basis. And the habit of putting that part of ourselves aside, has been so firmly entrenched in our vocabulary, our emotional vocabulary, that we never think about it when somebody says, are you scared, you say, oh no, even though we could be terrified, because we don't allow ourselves to think that we're terrified. Because if we thought we were terrified, we'd start to act like we were terrified. And that would produce the kind of reaction Sahil was just describing, doing things that you feel uncomfortable, that make you look more vulnerable. But in fact, as we become more integrated, our personalities become more integrated, and the different parts of ourselves get to know each other better, then stress levels tend to go down markedly. That's one of the reasons why insight-oriented psychotherapy can be so useful, because at the end of the road, you have an understanding of why you get agitated in certain situations, and not in others. SAHIL  37:04 So just to add to that chronic stress piece, it was stressful to be in a new city and learning how to fend for myself in that way. And the pace of professional school is very different from undergrad. It's hard to keep afloat in those settings sometimes. So I do think that chronic, ongoing feeling of drowning and rat race sometimes, I felt that even in my career, I think that does add to the situation. JO  37:30 For personal reasons, I'm interested in the link between genetics and anxiety and depression, as there's a history of those in my family. My dad experienced anxiety and depression. My paternal grandfather was hospitalized because of mental health challenges. And my maternal grandmother took her life by suicide when my mom was just eight years old. I also wonder about the impact of trauma and have tried to unearth the traumatic event in my past that might have triggered my challenges. Warren what can you tell us about that? Warren  38:06 Trauma is something that depends very much on the context in which a particular behavior occurs. And the trauma is not always explosive, violent, and deeply disruptive. Sometimes trauma can be the lack of a response to a certain behavior on our part as children. The adverse childhood experience body of research is often shortened to ACE, A C E, began in 1988. But it's research that really explores something that's deeply rooted in human experience. And that is that if things go really bad when you're young and vulnerable, then it can shape your response to the future quite dramatically. If somebody has a father who's an alcoholic, the father may never be violent or aggressive or invasive into that child's life, but they may be absent, they may be sort of non-existent, the parenting role could be almost completely removed because of a preoccupation with the state of consumption of alcohol. Sometimes parents are away a lot, they're absent. So trauma takes different forms. I think it's generally recognized that an accumulation of extremely disruptive events, things like a parent going to jail, things like the death of a parent, things like physical, mental, social, and sexual abuse. All of these really invasive, intensely disruptive forms of trauma clearly shake, sometimes shatter the sense of personality, self-esteem, self-trust, trust in others, and that can have impacts throughout a person's life. There's quite strong evidence that if you accumulate a certain number of traumatic experiences in your early years, it will have a permanent effect on your development as a human being. That said, you mentioned the genetic component of mental distress and mental difficulties. There is some degree of that, but with most genetic components, they offer about five, maybe 10 percent of the reason why things happen. What you may have genetically is a tendency, but not necessarily a condition. And so you might be more susceptible to certain kinds of inputs. But it's not that you're going to go ahead and behave in a certain way because of your genes overwhelming your judgment. JO  40:49 Warren, you've been doing this for decades. Have the levels of anxiety and depression increased over the last 10 or 20 years? Warren  40:59 My observation would be that certain kinds of anxieties have increased. And certain kinds of social and environmental, and I mean environmental in the broadest sense of the term, pressures and disruptions have come into the lives of many, many people around the world. On the broad scale, there is widespread anxiety, and particularly among young people, children ages, say six to 15. Anxiety about their future, on a planet that is increasingly degraded by human activity and the presence of so many of us on the planet. That's a genuine anxiety. And there have been surveys. The BBC did one recently that showed in every country, they analyzed children's responses, they found this kind of anxiety underlying their daily lives. They don't go around talking about it all the time, but if you ask them how they feel, they're very explicit and describe quite disabling, sometimes senses of anxiety. One of my colleagues who works in an emergency room here, had three young people over a period of some months who had all come to the emergency room because they were either feeling suicidal, or they had made a suicidal attempt, because they were so depressed about the future of human society. They felt that there was no hope for us. And I think the heat dome and the fires during the summer really intensified those anxieties. There are also other stressors like the enormous disparity between the very well to do and the very underprivileged and financially insecure. So I think there are increased levels of depression and anxiety about those kinds of things. But to be honest, the primary things that bring on anxiety and depression are personal factors, elements, and events, and experiences within a person's own life. That's where those kinds of experiences take place. And I would say, there's probably in this part of the world, more of that going on in communities, and neighborhoods, and individuals to some extent than there are in many other parts of the world where connection and interaction and a sense of community are much more strongly developed. But I would say these broad disruptive impacts are being felt by people all over the world. JO  43:25 Sahil, what's your observation about mental health over the last couple of years since COVID? I have heard that statistically, mental health has declined over that period. But I've also heard very promising statistics about how many people have taken this as an opportunity, like yourself, to build themselves in a positive way. SAHIL  43:54 It's hard for me to assess the exact statistics on what's happening. But what I do feel confident saying is, it's a conversation that more people are willing to have. It's something that became a societal level conversation during COVID lockdowns on how are you actually feeling. I think it prompted a lot of self-reflection in individuals. So maybe that's why we're seeing both improvements, because people are seeing things that they can work on, and maybe more conversations on people not feeling well because you're actually recognizing what's happening. And not just burying it with the busyness of life. JO  44:32 A big chunk of Hari's book outlines his research findings about the effectiveness of pharmaceutical solutions for depression and/or anxiety. He also questions the long-held belief that brain chemistry changes are the primary causes of those disorders. Sahil, what do you think about the book and Hari's arguments? SAHIL  45:00 So I mentioned my story, I did very much subscribe to the chemical imbalance narrative. And I do think there is still some truth to be had there. I think it's good to have a conversation around that on, okay, maybe that's part of the scenario, but maybe not the whole scenario. And there are things that we can work on. I did really enjoy the book. I enjoyed the breakdown of all these connections, and frankly, then all of the solutions that can help chip away at it. I don't know if I bought all the arguments in their entirety. But I think there is enough in that book to reflect on and learn from. Warren  45:38 The book was interesting for me, because I was familiar with a lot of the research that he explores. From a journalist point of view, he went and interviewed the people who had done, for example, the meta-analysis of antidepressants with the SSRI, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor category. I was familiar with the fact that the full meta-analysis, which was done by obtaining all the studies that have been done on these drugs, rather than the ones that have been published at the time the drugs first came out. It was possible to do say, a dozen studies, find four that said what you want them to say, and then the other eight said things you didn't want them to say. In other words, they were not so positive about the drugs in question and their therapeutic benefits. And never publish those eight and only publish the four that you like. So what the researchers on that particular meta analysis did, they went and got all the studies. They nagged the Food and Drug Administration, so they finally gave them the actual raw data from those studies. And when that happened, it showed that the evidence used to promote many of the psychotropic drugs was quite skewed. It was quite directed towards a marketing end rather than a therapeutic end. And that's nothing new. Nobody should be surprised. The nature of the corporation and most large pharmaceutical companies or corporations, is to deal with the shareholders expectation of profit. And that's the sine qua non, the other part of it is of importance, but it's not the central issue. What I liked about the book was that I was hearing some of the sort of personal trajectories, the narratives of the people who did the research and why they did it, and what they felt about the research when they had done it. And that was adding another sort of personal element to stories that I had heard, written up in clinical journals. I particularly appreciated the fact that Hari was very open about his own struggles, which I think is important. It makes it clear that say an investigative journalist or a public figure, is not somebody who sprang out of the earth fully formed. They are like everybody else, in a process of evolving, and changing, and coming to new understanding about something that they might have thought they understood very well, for sometimes a very long time. So that was helpful for me. And then some of the individual stories about changes that took place in people's lives, I found quite illuminating, and quite heartening, as well. JO  48:20 What were your favorite stories and why? SAHIL  48:23 One of my favorite parts is right at the beginning, when the author talks about the initial experience with the medications which paralleled mine, of there was a benefit, it would fade, there was a benefit, and it would fade. And specifically, there was this part where the author felt compelled to evangelize about the medications. And I felt that as well. I was singing the praises because I had felt so down and so unwell. The correction of that, or the fixing of that, however, I felt in that moment was so significant to me, that I felt that everyone should consider whether or not they need these medications. So that point of relatability from the beginning, stuck with me and probably added to the authenticity of the book for me, or added to the reliability of the author's narrative throughout. Warren  49:15 The story that captured my imagination the most was the story he told about arriving in Berlin, he's originally German so this was kind of like coming home and coming across a small community of people rejected on all sides by society. Some of them were immigrants from other countries that didn't speak English, or German, or other as a first language. Some were people who had been disabled. Some were people with sexual orientation that was not accepted in German society. And somehow, they just didn't feel comfortable in the value system of the society they we're living in. All of them had been kind of isolated from society as a whole but also from one another. And then an elderly immigrant woman decided to just sit out in public and be visible, because she was having trouble with attaining some goals in her life, from the government. And around her coalesced a whole new community that formed, and was established, and strengthened, and sustained by the energy that each of these marginalized individuals brought to the broader nature of their gathering of people. It wasn't just a heartwarming story, it was an analysis of how community is established. You reach out, you find commonality, you ignore the superficial differences, you look for the deeper values that you share. And then when you do that, you gain an enormous sense of personal and shared satisfaction. And I think if there was any way to give an example of how to enhance mental health, I would say that story to me stood out very much so. SAHIL  51:03 I agree. Not only was it heartwarming, I found it to be so empowering. In those most dire of circumstances, they were able to come together. And that sense of community that they built was inspiring and empowering on any time you find yourself in dire straits, you can build that community that will help you through it. Warren  51:22 And I would compare that to say, a very wealthy suburb in a large urban setting where all the houses are grand, the trees are beautiful, and the neighbors don't always know each other. And they're often sort of in competition to have the nicest lawn, or the biggest swimming pool, or whatever. And sometimes, not always, but sometimes, just very wrapped up in material values. And then at some point in time realizing that what they really want is a sense of relationship with others. JO  51:58 Much of the book focuses on what Hari feels are the nine major causes of depression and anxiety, including trauma and genetics. He describes them as disconnection from other people, or meaningful values and work and from status and respect. He also talks about us being disconnected from nature, and from a hopeful and secure future, which are inextricably linked. He goes on to talk about solutions, or what he calls different kinds of antidepressants. And we don't have time to talk about all of these, but I would like to dig a little deeper into what I believe is the most important message in the book. And that's the vital role social connection plays in mental health at all scales, individuals, families, workplaces, and communities. So first of all, Sahil being of Indian descent, your experience with social connection is much different than ours in the Western world. Tell us about that, and how it played out in your life. SAHIL  53:07 My parents are from India, moved here kind of in their 20s. Typical immigrant story, came with very little, have kind of worked their way up the social ladder. I'm born and raised in Canada. Being Canadian is my primary identity. And then I so happen to have this background. And with that background, I think comes a greater sense of family and importance on family. The social connection that I have with my parents and with my sister, that family household connection is so central to my existence. Leaving that when I left Kelowna to go to Vancouver for pharmacy school, that definitely had a role of being further from my greatest support system. And there was never a sense that I would be abandoned. When I look at more Western culture of kids moving out at 18, it seems such a difficult way of life. I don't know if I would have been able to get to where I'm at in life, if that was the culture that I came from, or if that was the situation I was in. So that value on a family and supporting each other, this mindset of my parents support me until I'm self-sufficient, and then eventually, the responsibility becomes mine to take care of them. So we're always being taken care of and supported in that way. There's no sense of time out in the world by myself. Warren  54:33 The Indian culture is, in some ways, far more mature than the kind of hybrid culture that we have in this part of the world. And many, many other cultures really have maintained a sense of community and family. There's no question I've observed in many, many situations how having sometimes just one healthy relationship can mean the difference between somebody being really distressed almost all the time, and feeling a sense of relief and security. Maybe I can recite a story that was told to me by two prominent members of Indigenous community here. They talked about the fact that everything that happened in Indigenous community was for the community. And as a result, everything you did was to make sure the community survived. So if food was scarce, and hunters brought back a deer or something like that, or there was some kind of plant that they could harvest, it would be shared equally among the community. And even if somebody was a hunter and needed more energy, then others would make sure that the hunter had a little bit extra. We certainly don't think of the communitarian values that underlie our behavior all that much. We're doing a better job now, but we've got a long way to go. And I think we can learn a lot from the Indigenous experience. JO  55:59 Sahil, you have one foot in Canadian culture, the other in Indian culture. Tell us what you've learned about your Indian culture that would help us build more mentally healthy communities here. SAHIL  56:12 It's hard for me to speak for all of South Asian culture. Even just India is a country of a billion people, and there's a lot of nuances. But what I can say from my personal experience is, I'm lucky to have a good family dynamic. And that's taken work. It's taking conversations, it's taken establishing and respecting boundaries. So I think the takeaway for me is put time and effort into cultivating the relationships, maintaining the relationships, because that is kind of the foundation of everything else. If you have those, you can work through a lot of the other difficulties that life throws at you. JO  56:55 Warren, you and I have talked a lot about the importance of livable communities that are designed and built to foster social connection. Dig deeper into that for us. Warren  57:08 Absolutely, and with considerable enthusiasm. How you construct a community, how you actually build the infrastructure in a community has an enormous impact on the ability for people to connect with one another. I remember an article in Scientific American that showed a small English village before the advent of the automobile. And the road was narrow, and the paths on the side of it, what we might call the sidewalk was large. And there were people all over the sidewalk, and very few vehicles, and most of them were horse drawn in the roadway. After the advent of motor vehicles, and a few decades gone by, the roadway had expanded, the sidewalk had shrunk. And the vehicles on the road clearly overwhelmed any walking activities that took place, and the sidewalk was really just a kind of a narrow front in front of stores and other kinds of buildings. And the structure there did not facilitate people crossing the road to talk to one another. So when we do that kind of change in a town, even a small English village, without realizing it, we've disrupted social patterns and a sense of social connection. The changes that we've introduced with what they call concrete jungles, downtown areas where every surface has been built. And the only place you can actually meet somebody is by going in a door into a building and typically presenting something about yourself. Either it's you want a hotel room, or you want to buy something. But the interactions that are just the casual interactions are very hard to come by. I live in a small town. I've been here for 45, 43 years, and I walk down the street and it's a social event. I meet people every few feet practically, who I know and have a few words with. So I think how you construct a community has an enormous impact. Walking trails, park benches, park spaces where people can just hang out and be sociable. All of those things and many others make a huge difference in terms of facilitating social connection. SAHIL  59:17 This theme of the environment, and how ever you define it keeps coming up and is really important. And I think that starts even in your bedroom. What do you have there, and what is that promoting in your life? All the way to, yes, the greater community and the planet. And something that I've been reflecting on more recently is cultivating as much as I can, the environment that's going to bring the behaviors out of me or create the mindset in me that I'm wanting. JO  59:45 I've been a public outreach and engagement consultant to local governments in BC for 30 years. And I'm thrilled to say that things are definitely getting better at the community scale. When I started in the early 90s, municipalities didn't have sustainability plans or programs, climate action plans or programs, and very few were thinking about the social and cultural considerations of community well-being. I'm thrilled to say that there have been dramatic changes in these areas. Communities of all sizes across Canada are working with residents to plan and mobilize efforts to enhance and integrate social, cultural, environmental, and economic well-being. Warren  1:00:32 Joanne, that is such an important thing that people who are in governance systems can do to make communities what they have the potential to be, which is hubs for people interacting at multiple different levels and in multiple different ways. And in almost all of them positive. And there are many ways you structure both the physical structures and the social structures. The way support systems are given to people or not given to people can make a huge difference in the way their lives work out. And I think that is a critical element that all leaders and communities can play and make a huge difference. JO  1:01:13 Warren, I know you're also passionate about the social determinants of mental health, and how they impact people's well-being. These include things like housing, employment, education, physical environment, security, and financial stability, to name just a few. Knowing that you promote universal, basic income at every opportunity as a way to optimize these factors, tell us more and why it would improve mental health across the board. Warren  1:01:45 There's two pieces of evidence around mental health and what a universal basic income does to that part of our lives. The empirical evidence is that every experiment that has been done in this area has shown a massive uptick in positive emotional state in the people receiving the universal basic income in whatever form it occurred. There was an experiment done in Dauphin, Manitoba in the 70s and early 80s. And one of the universal findings there was everybody felt so much better about their life. There was an experiment done in Ontario for about three years before it was shut down by a new government. And it showed exactly the same thing, something like 87 percent of people had this enormous uplift in their state of mind, because they felt cared for. They felt nurtured by the community at large. It wasn't that they were given this cheque and they just went off and spent it. They looked at the cheque and they said, "This is all the other people who live in this community, contributing a few cents to my financial security." And that was a very powerful thing. The other piece of evidence is drawn from human health. And if you look at physical health outcomes in countries where there's more income equality, and what a universal basic income does is it puts a floor under which nobody will sink. The evidence from many different countries in the world shows that human health at the physical level improves very significantly. Countries with greater financial disparities between the wealthy and the financially underprivileged. Every study shows that people use hospitals less often, they go to doctors, less often, they suffer from chronic illness less often. So I think it's very hard to argue against universal basic income. SAHIL  1:03:39 I think on a broader scale, it's a great idea. We want everyone in society to be taken care of, to be fed, to be housed. The social determinants of health are something recently learned in school. Income inequality is such a predictor of health along with education and the other determinants. We talk about medications a lot, but these basic foundational societal concerns, if these can be addressed, then were working on prevention rather than treatment, and I think that's a great approach. I am probably not as well educated on the economic consequences of these policies and decisions, but definitely something I'm curious about and want to learn more about, because the promise, I think, is there. JO  1:04:30 This has been an informative and inspiring journey with you both personally and as a producer of this podcast. Thank you from the bottom of my heart, for sharing your stories and your incredible insights and passions. So let's close with a question for each of you. Warren, you've been doing this a long time. What are you seeing in treatment modalities and health care now that gives you hope for the future? Warren  1:04:59 I've been reflecting on this quite a bit recently because I'm veering towards retirement, and it makes you think about what is the nature of healthcare and your role in it. And what is the system itself doing, which I've been observing for nearly five decades overall. One of the big changes is that the information that is now available to people is far more abundant than it once was. At one point, you could only get information about health from either a specific healthcare practitioner or from somebody who was selling you a product. Abundant and accurate information about human health, in all its aspects and every aspect that we've talked about today, it's now available online. Now, there are of course, sources of information that are entirely questionable and distorted. But much of the information is really eye opening for many people. And that's taking the emphasis off just say going to the doctor or going to see another health professional, and sort of democratizing access to information, which I think is a really important step. And I think that's revolutionizing how healthcare happens. JO  1:06:19 Sahil giving your lived experience of depression and anxiety, your expertise as a progressive pharmacist, and what you've learned from Hari's book, how do you see the future for the one in five Canadians who have or will have depression and or anxiety? SAHIL  1:06:37 I see a hopeful future. I think it starts with that first step of that self-awareness and identification of what's happening before it's becoming too severe. Trying out all the non-medication measures, some mentioned in Hari's book, and some we've mentioned throughout the podcast, and then having your health care team in place if you're needing it to work on from the psychotherapy aspect or

This Week’s Featured Interview: Nuclear icon Dr. Helen Caldicott is an Australian physician, author, and for six decades has been one of the world's most important anti-nuclear advocates. She revived or founded several associations, including Physicians for Social Responsibility and International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War. Caldicott is dedicated to opposing the use...

This Week’s Featured Interview: Nuclear icon Dr. Helen Caldicott is an Australian physician, author, and for six decades has been one of the world’s most important anti-nuclear advocates. She revived or founded several associations, including Physicians for Social Responsibility and International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War. Caldicott is dedicated to opposing the use...

Richard Denton, a leader in the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, had introduced me to a California lady who had led over 100 tours of Russia to teach Americans that "Russians are not enemies." We invited Richard to join us in the chat with her and, when she did not turn up, he and Metta chatted as old friends in the Canadian peace movement. Although they did not disagree, Richard expressed the more optimistic views, for example, about the power of cross-border friendships as a means of preventing war. For the video, audio podcast, transcript, and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-433-two-canadian-peace-workers/.  

Mary Ellen Francoeur is a Sister of Service who works against war. Neil Arya is a physician who has chaired the peace organization International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War Canada. He also maintains a clinic for refugees in Canada. They are both appalled at the war in Ukraine - not least at the fact that it is drawing our own resources and attention away from equally urgent issues. But the conversation reveals another disappointing truth: that during a war, peace activists find their usual long-term recommendations ineffective in stopping the bloodshed and protecting the victims. The desire of the Ukrainians for weapons is understandable, yet tragic, for in the long run, militarism does not create peace. For the video, audio podcast, transcript and comments, https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-429-peacemakers-during-a-war/

Today we are turning to the war in Ukraine and in particular the manifold nuclear threats arising from this conflict. To explore these issues are two experts in their fields, Dr Jim Green, national nuclear free campaigner with Friends of the Earth Australia, and Tilman Ruff, Co-founder of ICAN, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons.  Jim Green, 3 March 2022, RenewEconomyhttps://reneweconomy.com.au/could-the-ukraine-conflict-lead-to-one-of-the-worlds-worst-nuclear-disasters/Friends of the Earth Nuclear Free campaign: https://nuclear.foe.org.au/International Physicians for the prevention of nuclear war: https://www.ippnw.org/International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons: https://icanw.org.au/ 

Der Ärzteverein International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War(IPPNW) ist 1980 von einem russischen und einem amerikanischen Kardiologen gegründet worden – zur Verhinderung eines Atomkrieges in den Zeiten des Kalten Krieges. Für ihr Engagement bekamen sie 1985 den Friedensnobelpreis. International setzen sich mehrere Tausend Mediziner und Medizinerinnen in über 60 Ländern auf allen fünf Kontinenten für eine friedliche, atomtechnologiefreie und menschenwürdige Welt ein und arbeiten dabei über alle politischen und gesellschaftlichen Grenzen hinweg. In Deutschland nennt sich die IPPNW “Deutsche Sektion der Internationalen Ärzte für die Verhütung des Atomkrieges / Ärzte in sozialer Verantwortung e.V.” und besteht aus 6000 Ärzten und Ärztinnen, Medizinstudierenden und Fördermitgliedern. Die Organisation forscht, unter anderem, zu den Fakten und Hintergründen der gesundheitlichen, sozialen und politischen Auswirkungen von Krieg und Atomtechnologie. Ich bin heute hier verabredet mit Carlotta Conrad. Sie ist Vorstandsmitglied der IPPNW. Hallo Carlotta, bitte stell uns doch die Arbeit der IPPNW etwas genauer vor. Was macht Ihr und warum?

Neil Arya and Jonathan Down are leaders in the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War - Canada, and Alan Haber organizes events in Michigan. For the video, podcast, transcript, and comment column: https://tosavetheworld.ca/347-local-and-transnational-peace-work/

August 12, 2020 ​ Dr. Richard Denton is an outstanding World citizen, Rotarian, nuclear war prevention expert, and associate professor at the Northern Ontario School of Medicine. He has served as president of the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment, and Physicians for Global Survival. Denton is the North American co-chair for International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War -- the organization that was part of Arthur's 1983 film with Paul Newman called War without Winners. -- See the video at: PeoplePoweredPlanet.com -- Music by: „World Citizen“ Jahcoustix feat. Shaggy courtesy of Dominik Haas, Telefonica and EoM Also, check out the film on World Citizen #1 Garry Davis at: www.theworldismycountry.com

August 19, 2020 Dr. Ira Helfand is Co-President of the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War. He is also the founding partner of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), the recipient of the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize! Please watch Ira's profound and chilling talk to the Rotary Peace Conference - https://youtu.be/9SVfEWaVssU (starts 12 minutes in) In this talk, we focus on solutions. The UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons was adopted by 122 States in favour (with one vote against and one abstention). It will soon enter into force after being ratified by 50 of those nations. When that happens, how will it be enforced? How can we, the people, join in enforcing it? Come listen and bring your questions about how we can secure our future! -- See the video at: PeoplePoweredPlanet.com -- Music by: „World Citizen“ Jahcoustix feat. Shaggy courtesy of Dominik Haas, Telefonica and EoM Also, check out the film on World Citizen #1 Garry Davis at: www.theworldismycountry.com

This Week on Talk World Radio in the first half of the show our guest is Vanessa Lanteigne. Vanessa is the National Coordinator at the Canadian Voice of Women for Peace which is Canada's longest-running national women's peace organization. Vanessa has worked in a variety of roles in non-profits around the world. In Tanzania, she worked at an organization to end child marriage and promote the rights of children. In Ghana as a facilitator for youth livelihood skills, she facilitated training for over 1,000 youth and was a part of a team that rolled out the Innovation Fund for green entrepreneurs that was replicated in five other countries. Vanessa will be speaking at NoWar2021, the annual conference of World BEYOND War, which is virtual this year and can be signed up for at https://worldbeyondwar.org On the second half of the show we'll be talking about militaries at universities. Our guest Lia Holla is a third-year Bachelor's student at McGill University studying Physics and Political Science, and minoring in Behavioural Science. She works part-time as the Executive Director of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War and part-time with her Student Union as a Political Campaigns Coordinator. After moving to Montreal, she co-founded the Student for Peace and Disarmament Group which aims to be a community for peace and justice and to end military research on campus.

Richard Denton,M.D. is internationally engaged as a leader of Rotarians, the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, and several other peace organizations. He tells Metta about the Rotarians' campaign against polio (and how their experience can be useful in ending Covid-19) and the IPPNW's work with ICAN to create a treaty banning nuclear weapons.

In 2017 the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons started an international movement to develop a treaty on the prohibition of nuclear weapons. On January 22, the treaty was endorsed by 122 countries at the United Nations. Canada was not a signatory but there is a petition to Parliament to change that. Dr. Nancy Covington is with the Canadian affiliate of the International Physicians for Prevention of Nuclear War.Sign the petition: https://petitions.ourcommons.ca/en/Petition/Sign/e-3028

This Week’s Featured Interview:  Radioactive Olympics – Dr. Alex Rosen is one of two co-chairs of the German affiliate of the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW), where he is responsible for the topic of nuclear energy.  Dr. Rosen is a pediatric specialist and head of the pediatric emergency department of the...

In this episode Jonathan chats with Nobel Peace Prize laureate Tilman Ruff on his lifelong pursuit of a world free of nuclear weapons.Tilman Ruff AO is an infectious diseases and public health physician, with particular focus on the urgent planetary health imperative to eradicate nuclear weapons. His work also addresses the broader public health dimensions of nuclear technology.He is Associate Professor in the Nossal Institute for Global Health in the School of Population and Global Health, University of Melbourne. Dr Ruff has since 2012 been a co-president of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW, Nobel Peace Laureate 1985), and has previously served as Asia-Pacific Vice-President, Boston-based Consultant on Policy and Programs, and Board member. He is a co-founder and was founding international and Australian chair of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), and serves on the Committee of ICAN Australia. ICAN was awarded the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize “... for its work to draw attention to the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of any use of nuclear weapons and for its ground-breaking efforts to achieve a treaty-based prohibition of such weapons". ICAN is the first Australian-born Nobel Peace Laureate.Dr Ruff has been active in the Medical Association for Prevention of War (Australia) since 1982 and is a past national president. He was one of two civil society advisors to the International Commission on Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament, the first civil society representative on Australian nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty delegations, and a civil society delegate to the landmark intergovernmental Conferences on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons in Norway, Mexico and Austria (2013-14). In 2017, he led the IPPNW delegation in New York through the negotiation of the historic United Nations Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.Dr Ruff has clinical interests in immunisation and travel medicine, and was the inaugural head of travel medicine at Fairfield Hospital and then Royal Melbourne Hospital. He served as Australian Red Cross international medical advisor from 1996 to 2019. Dr Ruff worked on hepatitis B control and maternal and child health in Indonesia and Pacific island countries with the Australian and NZ government aid programs, Burnet Institute, UNICEF and WHO. He spent five years as regional medical director for an international vaccine manufacturer.In June 2012, Dr Ruff was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia "for service to the promotion of peace as an advocate for the abolition of nuclear weapons, and to public health through the promotion of immunisation programs in the South-East Asia - Pacific region". In 2019, he was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) “For distinguished service to the global community as an advocate for nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament, and to medicine.”

This week on The Grapevine, Co-President of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear (ICAN), Associate Professor Tilman Ruff, explains the global efforts towards global denuclearization in their report, ‘Enough is Enough: Global Nuclear Weapons Spending 2020'.And NITV journalist, Rachel Hocking, jumps on the line to talk with Dylan and Kulja about a story she is working on following the Victorian Government's announcement of a redress scheme concerning stolen generation survivors of institutional childsex abuse and how First Australians can access reparations. Hocking also describes her interview with Warwick Thornton about his upcoming new doco screening on NITV.Then, Executive Director at Per Capita, Emma Dawson, talks all about the recent $60 billion Jobkeeper forecasting error, post-Covid economic recovery, and Per Capita's new report on underemployment in Australia.

Mary-Wynne Ashford is a retired Family Physician, with a specialty in Palliative Care. She was Co-President of the International Physicians for Prevention of Nuclear War for four years, and President of Physicians for Global Survival (Canada) for four years. IPPNW received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1985. She has received many awards for her work and her book Enough Blood Shed: 101 Solutions to Violence, Terror, and War. She has been teaching thousands of high school students about nuclear weapons and the Ban Treaty. Simon Black is a professor of labour studies at Brock University and founder of Labour Against the Arms Trade (LAAT), a coalition of peace and labour activists working to end Canada's participation in the international arms trade. LAAT organizes for arms conversion and a just transition for arms industry workers. @_SimonBlack @LAATCanada Simon Black and Mary-Wynne Ashford will both be speaking in May at the NoWar2020 conference in Ottawa. See https://nowar2020.worldbeyondwar.org

Tokyo 2020 Olympics – the Radioactive Truth: Dr. Alex Rosen, Int’l Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War This Week’s Featured Interview: The Tokyo Radioactive 2020 Olympics Dr. Alex Rosen is a German pediatrician who serves as the Chair, International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) Germany. He and the organization are deeply...

The Tokyo 2020 Olympics are being used as a propaganda tool to "normalize" the Fukushima nuclear disaster and force residents back into living in radioactive zones. This interview w/Dr. Alex Rosen, a German pediatrician with International Physicians for Prevention of Nuclear War, provides scientific background, analysis, and actions being put together by an international community opposed to Japan's cover-up of Fukushima dangers. Interviewed by host Libbe HaLevy.

The Tokyo 2020 Olympics are being used as a propaganda tool to "normalize" the Fukushima nuclear disaster and force residents back into living in radioactive zones. This interview w/Dr. Alex Rosen, a German pediatrician with International Physicians for Prevention of Nuclear War, provides scientific background, analysis, and actions being put together by an international community opposed to Japan's cover-up of Fukushima dangers. Interviewed by host Libbe HaLevy.

The Tokyo 2020 Olympics are being used as a propaganda tool to "normalize" the Fukushima nuclear disaster and force residents back into living in radioactive zones. This interview w/Dr. Alex Rosen, a German pediatrician with International Physicians for Prevention of Nuclear War, provides scientific background, analysis, and actions being put together by an international community opposed to Japan's cover-up of Fukushima dangers. Interviewed by host Libbe HaLevy.

Joan Cerio welcomes Dr. Helen Caldicott who shares with us her knowledge of how nuclear weapons, nuclear disasters such as Fukushima, and global warming are threatening the existence of our planet. The single most articulate and passionate advocate of citizen action to remedy the nuclear and environmental crises, Dr. Helen Caldicott, has devoted the last 42 years to an international campaign to educate the public about the medical hazards of the nuclear age and the necessary changes in human behavior to stop environmental destruction. Dr. Caldicott received her medical degree from the University of Adelaide Medical School in South Australia in 1961. She founded the Cystic Fibrosis Clinic at the Adelaide's Children's Hospital and subsequently was an instructor in pediatrics at Harvard Medical School. While living in the US, she was the president of Physicians for Social Responsibility. She also helped start similar medical organizations in many other countries. One of these groups, the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1985. She also founded the Women's Action for Nuclear Disarmament. Dr. Caldicott has received many prizes and awards for her work, including the Lannan Foundation's 2003 Prize for Cultural Freedom and 21 honorary doctoral degrees. She was personally nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by Linus Pauling, himself a Nobel Laureate. The Smithsonian has named Dr. Caldicott as one of the most influential women of the 20th Century. She has written for numerous publications and has authored seven books. She has also been the subject of several films, including the documentary If You Love This Planet, which won the Academy Award for best documentary in 1982. Dr. Caldicott is the President of The Helen CaldicottFoundation/NuclearFreePlanet.org. Her website is https://HelenCaldicott.com.

John Loretz, who retired as program director of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War in 2017, spent his professional career educating the public about the health and environmental consequences of nuclear war and campaigning for the elimination of nuclear weapons. He was a member of the steering committee of ICAN—the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons—which received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2017 for helping to achieve the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. In this installment of The Woodshed Podcast, John talks with Aaron Tornberg about his lifelong involvement with the nuclear issue, and performs songs by six of the many songwriters who have sounded the alarm about this existential threat.

Tim opens that he knows mothers who are not allowing their young infants and children to be in the room during TV news. As it’s too violent and overwhelming for young sensitive minds. In today’s world, there is a need for them to play, acquire communication skills and keep their innocence for a little while longer. However Lisa, as a mother of 3 boys, thinks that around 9 years of age they need to understand a little more about what is happening in their world.  The question then comes up - Where do you source your news from? Especially international news?  RT.com - (Russia Today) good for what is going on around our planet, but not necessary as to what is happening in Russia. CNN is not necessarily good anymore. Lisa, mentions El Jazeera - has some good things, but we realise it too has its weak points.  The Guardian - used to be relatively balanced but having a leftish viewpoint - that now having gone into the USA - has become very anti Russian so as to build up it’s US viewership.  Lisa said Guardian let Jullian Assange down badly. The BBC did not even get a mention. Lisa, says news today focuses on the head not the heart. Though the Guardian has relatively good ecology and environmental coverage. We then went free form and covered bees, as being the proverbial canary in the coal mine - being susceptible to 5G wireless radiation and becoming lost and not being able to navigate back to the hive. This being linked as a result of increasing global wifi frequencies. Then there are neonicotinoids (and very possibly glyphosate) that are being used in the industrial, factory farming agriculture sector   That bees provide so much - including health products as well as pollination for food.  Lisa emphasises that the birds and the bees plus the insect kingdom are going to be the proverbial mass canaries in the coal mine. Lisa - saving insects due their drop off in numbers is very important - glyphosate yet again but also neonicotinoids  - a chemical that is used to coat the seed with this concoction and the plants grow up with this poison in them. This being deleterious  - now there are basically no insects on our car windscreens … no moths at night on our outside light. Insects are disappearing. https://www.ourplanet.org/greenplanetfm/karen-wealleans-pat-baskett-dangers-of-neonicotinoids Superphosphate - leaving cadmium in the soil. NZ has a growing problem with too much superphosphate being spread across NZ farmland so as to speed up the growth of grass, but leaving a deadly problem in the ground. - cadmium a heavy metal.  https://organicnz.org.nz/media-releases/toxic-time-bomb-blow-apart-health-wealth/ We covered illnesses - and Jodi Brunning’s recent GreenplanetFM interview - where she talked about many diseases and illnesses, bad tummy - intestine problems, skin rashes and lack of sleep - all happening at once as in some sort of convergence - they have named it ‘co-morbidity’.  That these are unknown illnesses and there are increasing links to the agricultural chemicals we have in the food we eat and that are sprayed into our food chain.  https://www.ourplanet.org/greenplanetfm/jodie-bruning-independent-researcher-of-health-especially-children-s-wellbeing-in-new-zealand Lisa said homeopathics - continues to work for her Tim talked about the British Royal Family and its continued use and success with it for 150 years, especially  in Germany and France. That it is deliberately maligned - but classical Homeopaths still being trained here in NZ.  That we humans are wave-forms - and so are homeopathic solutions. By 1948 the Rockefeller/Morgan Financial empires had already invested $800 million to manipulate pubic education in matters of health and pharmacology. Note; JD Rockefeller and his recently deceased 104 year old son David only relied on homeopaths to maintain their personal health. Ref. Heidelberg University Clinic Department of Psychosomatic Medicine Chief Consultants (Prof. Mitserlich and Dr Ruffler) opinion on Bruno Groning (24.10.51) BG-A 18 . Neutrinos - instantly passing through all 7.7 billion of us. Tim emphasised that there are trillions of invisible neutrinos zipping through us right at this moment, just under the speed of light. The come from our sun and all stars - passing straight through our planet and out the other side in less than nano-seconds. That nothing is solid - our body is in many ways a cellular hologram. What do we do for our Great Sustainer? Children are being brought up - to think that food comes from the supermarket - not really being taught how all of our food chain comes from nature - that we now have a sanitised media - sales are more important that growing your own healthy organic produce. (we acknowledge that not everyone has land on which to grow food). Indigenous Connection Lisa talks about indigenous peoples connection to nature and the source from where we spring. They know exactly where their food comes from. Especially Maori and their connection - and their whakapapa - their umbilical cord linkage - following it back from their mother - through their ancestral lineage going all the way back to the 7 canoes (waka) that brought them to Aotearoa NZ from across the Pacific, supposedly around the 1400’s. They intuitively, sense and understand ‘connection’. Including to Mother earth - Papatuanku. Where are today’s leaders in relationship to the future of children? Tim asked about - where are the leaders of the world who are prepared to talk about the future of children?  In particular his asking, ‘why can they not factor children into all future legislation?’ Lisa - because of short term thinking and what is going to make them popular for the next election - only for 3 year terms (NZ)  She talks about that humans for some unknown reason do not ‘feel’ the future. Listen  Brain does not get it but the heart does. What are we leaving for the future to sort out? Greta Thunberg and the children of tomorrow. David Suzuki’s daughter in 1992 - never got the media attention way back then at the 1992 Rio Conference - where her addressing the UN was equally poignant, how did it take so long? We wish Greta had mentioned the fossil fuel use - that the US military are the record user of fossil fuel.  But what about the $trillions being spent on the worlds military? - we could solve so many if not all of our ecological problems by diverting military spending into environmental action. And if Greta could have also mentioned Fukushima in Japan - that is belching nuclear radiation into the Pacific - our local ocean. (However as a young girl on the global stage it is a momentous task to be able to stand up in a public venue and talk from the heart.  Question to you dear reader, could you stand up and without notes talk to 2000 people plus?) That there is plastic garbage in the ocean and that there are many other ecological challenges that are outside, climate change.  Lisa, mentions that the status quo have got too much focus on money to want to move on climate change. Other non polluting energy systems that have been silenced. Tim - talks to other means - free energy devices that both Foster Gamble in the trailer to the Thrivemovie.com - tells - that the tech is here. Dr Steven Greer agrees - however this information is being silenced by big money, the fossil fuel and nuclear power lobbies and over arching vested interests.  Its ‘called censorship by omission.’ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OibqdwHyZxk  Tim - that we could also work towards research into little black boxes that could possibly capture neutrinos passing through our planet and that as these neutrinos are now known to have mass - they may be very much like solar energy coming from the sun - hitting a highly refined ‘plate surface’ within the little black box that then catalizers an energy transfer into electricity.  But this concept too is not in the public consciousness, yet needs to be. Being sanitised by MSM - and sanitised from academia and not let out in the public domain. Lisa says that new ideas that do come out - will end up being taken over by a large energy combine, who will buy the inventor out with many millions and then that corporation will sit on this tech break-through - having no intention what so-ever of taking this new revolutionary concept to the market - or giving clean energy to the human race. Serious Global use of Microwave Technology  Lisa talks about microwave tech that is being used right up to this moment - HAARP technologies being mentioned and then microwave weather wars and how Mozambique was affected by a large tropical cyclone - a weather incident that culminated in yet another huge tropical storm that completely flooded a whole area where coincidentally oil had just been discovered. Resulting in the local inhabitants being forced to flee the area and then the oil corporation moved in. Lisa says is there a link? She also says people have to start talking about this - and doing one’s our own research. However note that Google in the last 3 years have been, changing their algorithms to hide information from their search engines and essentially censor anyone wanting to find out what is truly going on. This is a very serious matter for all activists but also mums and dads wanting to obtain more information so as to advise their children in the best possible manner as to what is happening and what we can do to change the narrative for the better. https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-08-31/artificial-hurricanes-manufactured-deep-state-enterprise Back to the News! Tims asks the question; who is the person who chooses everyday what is to be on the news? What is the criteria from which they make their choice?   Radio NZ was mentioned as having some good news (but I Tim, find it too conservative for myself). Tim talked of young children unsupervised on the web - very dangerous and very seductive - keep them away from the dark web. Trolling and blogs that are 60% true and 40% distortion … Lisa says she uses her intuition with regard to a lot of information that she sees now on the web. As a woman she says what else can she fall back on, but to use her sense of intuition to divine the truth. Q and the Qanon phenomenon comes up - and who is Q or they? Are they are right wing conspiracy theory - even if they say that the Rothschilds are at the top of the heap - and that Israel is to be left to last - that Obama and the Clintons are going to face extremely serious charges in the coming future. That Jeffrey Epstein being a Mossad agent was used to compromise people and leaders in high places and blackmail them so as to have them do what their new masters deem as necessary? The fact that Greta Thunberg has hit the headlines has also wiped Epstein and his nefarious activities out of the news and the global narrative, has been noted - as well as taking 5G out of the public discourse too, is also noted.  Censorship by Omission? Donald J Trump and his Executive Order EO 13818 signed on the 21st December 2017.  Is it connected to Epstein being arrested and  jailed - being the first of many involved in people trafficking and pedophilia? Blocking the Property of Persons Involved in Serious Human Rights Abuse or Corruption To the many following this Executive Order they state that this is Trumps greatest initiative - the take down of human trafficking - that goes all the way up to the top of global (sex) trafficking and all the darkness that goes with it.  This is what the Epstein case was - just the top of iceberg - and he got eliminated - by who we do not know? - But Epstein has been linked as a front of the Mossad. If you saw Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut - you see how sex and blackmail closed down all the rich families to what is going on at the top of the upper strata of the West.  Who knows what is happening elsewhere? The Catholic Church and Cardinal George Pell being sentenced to jail - was this just ‘near’ the top of the iceberg too?  5G - the Nuclear Free Moment for NZ?  5G Vodafone and their 1400 towers. Lisa says people power needs to block the putting up of the towers as per her information of what was happening in the Coromandel. That these tower deployments need no authority to put up. They can be put up anywhere the teleco’s want with no public input - whatsoever. That means right outside your home dramatically dropping the value of your house. Telecommunications corporations are now the largest corporate entities on the planet. Lisa thinks that the Government will not do anything about 5G -  they are tied into the Agenda - so yet again it is: Grassroots action for us all. Notice how few letters to the editor questioning 5G get published in the NZ Herald? Yet, there is a gathering ground swell - nation wide. Call to Action October the 23rd October near Smales Farm Takapuna on - Vodafone Placard demo - staff have been told that it is nothing to be of concern - just an upgrade to 4G. https://www.facebook.com/events/3033575223534618/permalink/3039608389597968/ Stop 5G Placard Protest. Where - Vodafone. 74 Taharoto Rd Takapuna Auckland When – Wednesday October 23rd From -  11.30am - 2pm. Parking may be difficult Buses to Smales Farm + two minute walk Bring – placards opposing 5G Get creative! Hope to see you all there and please share. The World Media always wanting to frighten us. Nuclear war coming up in the narrative between Pakistan & India - there is so much turmoil being fermented as of now.  Tim talked about how he was loosely affiliated in the early 1980’s with Beyond War a group in Palo Alto in California, USA. The Beyond War Award[9] was created in 1983 and ran for eight years (1983-1990) to honor the great efforts of humankind as it moves to build a world beyond war. The award attracted national and international attention through the nominating and selection process. Second Beyond War Award Ceremony 1984. The International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War received the second Beyond War Award. It was presented to the co-founders, Dr. Bernard Lown of the US and Dr. Yevgeni Chazov of the USSR, simultaneously through the use of a live satellite teleconference link or "spacebridge" between Moscow and San Francisco. This historic event was viewed live by over 75,000 people. Over 100 million Soviets subsequently saw the televised videotape. (Free Video at Archive.org.) Third Beyond War Award Ceremony 1985. The Beyond War Foundation presented its award to six world leaders, President Miguel de la Madrid in Mexico, President Raul Alfonsin of Argentina, Prime Minister Olof Palme in Sweden, First President Julius Nyerere (now retired) in Tanzania, Prime Minister Andreas Papandreou in Greece and Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in India, each in his respective country, at the same time on two-way television so they could all see and hear each other, and so the world could look on.[10]  What World Leader stands out today? The big countries with Nuclear weapons won’t budge on their weapons.  Israel - has them in secret and ignores all calls to be more transparent.  The Atomic Energy commission are sent into Iran and North Korea - but not Israel  Survival Movement NZ on facebook   Food secure and resilience - listen to Lisa explain what is happening on this facebook forum   https://www.facebook.com/groups/470181836848018/  Alternative News https://www.silverdoctors.com/headlines/world-news/cia-whistleblower-kevin-shipp-former-cia-director-brennan-will-rat-out-trump-coup-criminals/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BeytzB8J0dI   Roberts David Steele ex CIA  interviewed by an Australian who gets a good number of dark questions answered.

In our second episode, Kroc Institute Director of Catholic Peacebuilding Studies Jerry Powers sits down to talk with Dr. James Muller, co-founder of the Nobel Peace Prize winning organization International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, and Professor Emeritus George Lopez about the history, present, and future of the movement toward nuclear disarmament.

Angus Mitchell Oration: "The Humanitarian Imperative to Eliminate Nuclear Weapons" Tilman Ruff is a public health and infectious diseases physician; Co-President of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War since 2012 (Nobel Peace Prize 1985); and co-founder and founding international and Australian Chair of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), awarded the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize “for its work to draw attention to the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of any use of nuclear weapons and for its ground-breaking efforts to achieve a treaty-based prohibition of such weapons". Dr Ruff is Associate Professor in University of Melbourne's Nossal Institute for Global Health, which he helped establish. Tilman was the first civil society representative on Australian nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty delegations, civil society advisor to the International Commission on Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament, and a delegate to the landmark Conferences on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons in Norway, Mexico and Austria (2013-4). In 2017, he led the IPPNW delegation in New York throughout the UN General Assembly negotiation and adoption of the historic Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. In support of the treaty, he helped build a continuing collaboration between IPPNW and the largest international health federations - the World Medical Association, the World Federation of Public Health Associations and the International Council of Nurses. An IPPNW member since 1982, Dr Ruff has served as International Councillor for Australia, Boston-based consultant on policy and programs, and SE Asia-Pacific Vice-President. He is a past national president of IPPNW's Australian affiliate, the Medical Association for Prevention of War. Dr Ruff has clinical interests in immunisation and travel medicine, with over 22 years as Australian Red Cross international medical advisor. He was first to document links between outbreaks of ciguatera fish poisoning and nuclear testing in the Pacific. The inaugural head of travel medicine at Fairfield Hospital and then Royal Melbourne Hospital; Dr Ruff worked on hepatitis B control and maternal and child health in Indonesia and Pacific island countries with Burnet Institute, UNICEF and WHO; spent 5 years as regional medical director for an international vaccine manufacturer, and is a foundation member and serving his third term on the WHO Western Pacific Region Hepatitis B Immunisation Expert Resource Panel. Dr Ruff was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia in 2012 “for service to the promotion of peace as an advocate for the abolition of nuclear weapons, and to public health through the promotion of immunisation programs in the South-East Asia – Pacific region”.

This Week’s Featured Interview: Dr. Alex Rosen is a German pediatrician and Vice President of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War in Germany. We spoke originally in July of 2014, just after the United Nations UNSCEAR report was released. LINK to Full IPPNW report in English, Critical Analysis of the UNSCEAR Report “Levels...

Dr. Alex Rosen of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War takes down official UNSCEAR report w/footnotes, peer-review studies, truth. Libbe HaLevy interviews for Nuclear Hotseat. PLUS: "sexiest" Numnutz of the Week yet! Those nuclear bombs really turn the military industrial complex creeps on!

Dr. Alex Rosen of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War takes down official UNSCEAR report w/footnotes, peer-review studies, truth. Libbe HaLevy interviews for Nuclear Hotseat. PLUS: "sexiest" Numnutz of the Week yet! Those nuclear bombs really turn the military industrial complex creeps on!

Dr. Alex Rosen of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War takes down official UNSCEAR report w/footnotes, peer-review studies, truth. Libbe HaLevy interviews for Nuclear Hotseat. PLUS: "sexiest" Numnutz of the Week yet! Those nuclear bombs really turn the military industrial complex creeps on!

I recently sat down with Hillel Schenker, co-editor of the Palestine-Israel Journal, to discuss recent events in Gaza. Hillel Schenker is co-editor of the Palestine-Israel Journal, a Jerusalem-based independent English-language quarterly, initiated and maintained by a group of prominent Israeli and Palestinian academics and journalists. It aims to shed light on, and analyze freely and critically, the complex issues dividing Israelis and Palestinians. Schenker served for 13 years as editor of New Outlook, the Israeli peace monthly founded in the spirit of Martin Buber's philosophy of dialogue, that served as a vehicle for understanding Israeli-Arab affairs and as a catalyst for dialogue and initiatives for peace. He has written for The Nation, Los Angeles Times, L.A. Weekly, Tikkun, Israel Horizons, In These Times, the Israeli-Hebrew-language press and many other print and electronic outlets. He was an activist and co-founder of the Peace Now movement and has served for many years as spokesperson for the Israeli branch of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War. He is an International Advisory Board member of the Global Majority center for non-violent conflict resolution based at the Monterey Institute of International Studies.

Dr. Ira Helfand uncovers the threat to human survival posed by nuclear weapons and what we can do to eliminate this threat. Dangers of nuclear war exist. As an existential threat to humanity, Ira asks you to take action to end nuclear in all forms forever. Together, Ira asks, "Can we prevent nuclear war?"About Ira Helfand:Ira Helfand, MD is co-president of the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, recipient of the 1985 Nobel Peace Prize, and he is co-founder and past president of Physicians for Social Responsibility, IPPNW’s US affiliate. He has published studies on the medical consequences of nuclear war in the New England Journal of Medicine, and the British Medical Journal, and has lectured widely in the United States, and in India, China, Japan, Russia, South Africa, Israel, Pakistan, Mexico, Brazil, and throughout Europe on the health effects of nuclear weapons. He represented PSR and IPPNW at the Nobel ceremonies in Oslo in December 2009, honoring President Obama, and presented their new report, Nuclear Famine: One Billion People at Risk, at the Nobel Peace Laureates Summit in Chicago in April of 2012. A second edition was released in December of 2013.TEDxVail Dr. Helfand (Click Here)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUm82W7B2BY&index=12&list=PLsRNoUx8w3rP-7xavSv3QLbBAtyiUGaaDInternational Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War http://www.psr.org International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons http://www.ippnw.orgICAN http://www.icanw.org

Dr. Ira Helfand uncovers the threat to human survival posed by nuclear weapons and what we can do to eliminate this threat. Dangers of nuclear war exist. As an existential threat to humanity, Ira asks you to take action to end nuclear in all forms forever. Together, Ira asks, "Can we prevent nuclear war?" About Ira Helfand: Ira Helfand, MD is co-president of the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, recipient of the 1985 Nobel Peace Prize, and he is co-founder and past president of Physicians for Social Responsibility, IPPNW’s US affiliate. He has published studies on the medical consequences of nuclear war in the New England Journal of Medicine, and the British Medical Journal, and has lectured widely in the United States, and in India, China, Japan, Russia, South Africa, Israel, Pakistan, Mexico, Brazil, and throughout Europe on the health effects of nuclear weapons. He represented PSR and IPPNW at the Nobel ceremonies in Oslo in December 2009, honoring President Obama, and presented their new report, Nuclear Famine: One Billion People at Risk, at the Nobel Peace Laureates Summit in Chicago in April of 2012. A second edition was released in December of 2013. TEDxVail Dr. Helfand (Click Here) International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War psr.org  International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons ippnw.org ICAN icanw.org

NOTE: ORIGINALLY AIRED MARCH 16, 2016: The PSR/IPPNW report released projecting at least 10,000 excess cancer cases in Japan because of the radioactivity releases from the ongoing Fukushima nuclear disaster. We’ll hear from: Dr. Catherine Thomasson, Executive Director of Physicians for Social Responsibility; Dr. Alex Rosen of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War; Tim Mousseau, PhD, a Professor of Biological Sciences at the University of South Carolina and on-the-ground researcher into insect and animal mutations at Chernobyl and Fukushima. Link to Nuclear Hotseat #243 featuring extended interview w/Tim Mousseau Bob Alvarez, who specializes in nuclear disarmament, environmental and energy policies for the Institute for Policy Studies. Included will be insights into mainstream media response to this report.

NOTE: ORIGINALLY AIRED MARCH 16, 2016: The PSR/IPPNW report released projecting at least 10,000 excess cancer cases in Japan because of the radioactivity releases from the ongoing Fukushima nuclear disaster. We’ll hear from: Dr. Catherine Thomasson, Executive Director of Physicians for Social Responsibility; Dr. Alex Rosen of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War; Tim Mousseau, PhD, a Professor of Biological Sciences at the University of South Carolina and on-the-ground researcher into insect and animal mutations at Chernobyl and Fukushima. Link to Nuclear Hotseat #243 featuring extended interview w/Tim Mousseau Bob Alvarez, who specializes in nuclear disarmament, environmental and energy policies for the Institute for Policy Studies. Included will be insights into mainstream media response to this report.

NOTE: ORIGINALLY AIRED MARCH 16, 2016: The PSR/IPPNW report released projecting at least 10,000 excess cancer cases in Japan because of the radioactivity releases from the ongoing Fukushima nuclear disaster. We'll hear from: Dr. Catherine Thomasson, Executive Director of Physicians for Social Responsibility; Dr. Alex Rosen of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War; Tim Mousseau, PhD, a Professor of Biological Sciences at the University of South Carolina and on-the-ground researcher into insect and animal mutations at Chernobyl and Fukushima. Link to Nuclear Hotseat #243 featuring extended interview w/Tim Mousseau Bob Alvarez, who specializes in nuclear disarmament, environmental and energy policies for the Institute for Policy Studies. Included will be insights into mainstream media response to this report.

UN negotiations for a nuclear weapon ban treaty started with a one week session at the UN at the end of March. The aim of the ban is to de-legimatise nuclear bombs and put them on the same legal footing as other weapons of mass destruction, working much like the prohibitions on the use of chemical and biological weapons. This show includes a speech at the UN by Aunty Sue Coleman-Haseldine, a Kokatha elder and nuclear bomb survivor from South Australia, and Tilman Ruff, one of the founder of International Campaign Against Nuclear Weapons or ICAN and co-president of the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War.Music by Combat Wombat (Go to combatwombat.com.au to hear their new album)

1) Dr Margie Bearis- Peace and Anti-war report- M.A.P.W. President, 2) Part 2 of interview with Chance Worland- talking about life in south Korea 3) French political system- historian and author Brian McKinlay 4) Palestine issues- activist Kim Bullimore 5) The Doomsday Clock- moved to 2 minutes, 30 seconds to midnight- what does it mean? Assoc. Prof Tilman Ruff, co-president International Physicians for Prevention of Nuclear War and Associate Professor at Nossel Institute for Global Health at University of Melbourne

Dr. Alex Rosen of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW), uses that group’s footnoted, documented, peer-reviewed and fully vetted report to contradict the lies in the United Nations’ UNSCEAR report that seeks to minimize Fukushima radiation dangers. Then epidemiologist Joseph Mangano of Radiation and Public Health Project provides another damning response to the UNSCEAR report on Fukushima and the negative impact it is likely to have on the case of the USS Reagan sailors, who were hit with high levels of radiation while on an humanitarian aid mission to Fukushima immediately after the nuclear disaster began.

Dr. Alex Rosen of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW), uses that group's footnoted, documented, peer-reviewed and fully vetted report to contradict the lies in the United Nations' UNSCEAR report that seeks to minimize Fukushima radiation dangers. Then epidemiologist Joseph Mangano of Radiation and Public Health Project provides another damning response to the UNSCEAR report on Fukushima and the negative impact it is likely to have on the case of the USS Reagan sailors, who were hit with high levels of radiation while on an humanitarian aid mission to Fukushima immediately after the nuclear disaster began.

Dr. Alex Rosen of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW), uses that group’s footnoted, documented, peer-reviewed and fully vetted report to contradict the lies in the United Nations’ UNSCEAR report that seeks to minimize Fukushima radiation dangers. Then epidemiologist Joseph Mangano of Radiation and Public Health Project provides another damning response to the UNSCEAR report on Fukushima and the negative impact it is likely to have on the case of the USS Reagan sailors, who were hit with high levels of radiation while on an humanitarian aid mission to Fukushima immediately after the nuclear disaster began.

President Obama visited Hiroshima the same day I spoke w/Rick Wayman, Director of Programs & Operations at the California-based Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. We discuss the image vs. the reality of the administration's nuclear policy; the Marshall Islands lawsuits against the nine nuclear bomb-nations, then discusses some easy steps we can all take to pressure our government to change paths and work towards disarmament. Don't Bank on the Bomb – report on banks which have invested in nuclear technologies so you can remove your funds and raise their consciousnesses. Marshall Islands lawsuit – learn what they're doing, why, and how you can help. Dr. Helen Caldicott talks about her February speech to the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War in the most poignant terms possible.

President Obama visited Hiroshima the same day I spoke w/Rick Wayman, Director of Programs & Operations at the California-based Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. We discuss the image vs. the reality of the administration’s nuclear policy; the Marshall Islands lawsuits against the nine nuclear bomb-nations, then discusses some easy steps we can all take to pressure our government to change paths and work towards disarmament. Don’t Bank on the Bomb – report on banks which have invested in nuclear technologies so you can remove your funds and raise their consciousnesses. Marshall Islands lawsuit – learn what they’re doing, why, and how you can help. Dr. Helen Caldicott talks about her February speech to the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War in the most poignant terms possible.

President Obama visited Hiroshima the same day I spoke w/Rick Wayman, Director of Programs & Operations at the California-based Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. We discuss the image vs. the reality of the administration’s nuclear policy; the Marshall Islands lawsuits against the nine nuclear bomb-nations, then discusses some easy steps we can all take to pressure our government to change paths and work towards disarmament. Don’t Bank on the Bomb – report on banks which have invested in nuclear technologies so you can remove your funds and raise their consciousnesses. Marshall Islands lawsuit – learn what they’re doing, why, and how you can help. Dr. Helen Caldicott talks about her February speech to the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War in the most poignant terms possible.

Physicians for Social Responsibility and International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War release new report - 10,000-66,000 excess cancers expected in Japan as a result of Fukushima's radioactivity. With medical/research All Stars - Thomasson, Rosen, Mousseau, Alvarez - project http://ow.ly/ZwqsJ

Physicians for Social Responsibility and International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War release new report - 10,000-66,000 excess cancers expected in Japan as a result of Fukushima's radioactivity. With medical/research All Stars - Thomasson, Rosen, Mousseau, Alvarez - project http://ow.ly/ZwqsJ

Physicians for Social Responsibility and International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War release new report - 10,000-66,000 excess cancers expected in Japan as a result of Fukushima's radioactivity. With medical/research All Stars - Thomasson, Rosen, Mousseau, Alvarez - project http://ow.ly/ZwqsJ

This Week’s Featured Interviews: The PSR/IPPNW report released last week projecting at least 10,000 excess cancer cases in Japan because of the radioactivity releases from the ongoing Fukushima nuclear disaster. We’ll hear from: Dr. Catherine Thomasson, Executive Director of Physicians for Social Responsibility; Dr. Alex Rosen of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War;...

This Week’s Featured Interview: Dr. Alex Rosen, a German pediatrician who is Vice President of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW).  On behalf of that group, he takes on the United Nations’ UNSCEAR report on Fukushima that drastically, perhaps criminally downplayed the health dangers of that ongoing nuclear disaster. A pdf transcript...

Dr. James Muller is a renown Cardiologist and a founding member of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW), which was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1985. He joins us to discuss his work helping to prevent nuclear war, teaming up alongside those perceived as the enemy, and the double-edged sword of technology.

INTERVIEWS: Dr. Alex Rosen of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, who takes on and eviscerates the United Nations' UNSCEAR report that criminally underplays the radiation dangers from Fukushima; International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War; www.ippnw.org Epidemiologist Joseph Mangano, executive director of Radiation and Public Health Project, who explains why TEPCO's...

Special encore presentations of interviews with Dr. Alex Rosen of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, who takes on and eviscerates the United Nations' UNSCEAR report that criminally underplays the radiation dangers from Fukushima; and epidemiologist Joseph Mangano, executive director of Radiation and Public Health Project, who explains why TEPCO's interpretation of radiation data is wrong as it tries to undermine the legitimate claims of the USS Ronald Reagan sailors, who were hit with catastrophic radiation while on an humanitarian aid issue.

Special encore presentations of interviews with Dr. Alex Rosen of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, who takes on and eviscerates the United Nations' UNSCEAR report that criminally underplays the radiation dangers from Fukushima; and epidemiologist Joseph Mangano, executive director of Radiation and Public Health Project, who explains why TEPCO's interpretation of radiation data is wrong as it tries to undermine the legitimate claims of the USS Ronald Reagan sailors, who were hit with catastrophic radiation while on an humanitarian aid issue.

INTERVIEWS:  Urs Ruegg of the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) in Switzerland on that country’s nuclear problems and IPPNW’s upcoming Nuclearization of Africa Symposium in South Africa. Adam Weissman of Global Justice for Animals and the Environment gives us an update on the Senate’s approval of Fast Track for the Trans...

INTERVIEWS: Urs Ruegg of the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) in Switzerland on that country's nuclear problems and IPPNW's upcoming Nuclearization of Africa Symposium in South Africa. And Adam Weissman of Global Justice for Animals and the Environment gives us an update on the Senate's approval of Fast Track for the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) - not a good thing. NUMNUTZ: Head of France's nuclear watchdog group tells the truth about problems with EDF's new nuke in Normandy - the nerve!

INTERVIEWS: Urs Ruegg of the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) in Switzerland on that country's nuclear problems and IPPNW's upcoming Nuclearization of Africa Symposium in South Africa. And Adam Weissman of Global Justice for Animals and the Environment gives us an update on the Senate's approval of Fast Track for the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) - not a good thing. NUMNUTZ: Head of France's nuclear watchdog group tells the truth about problems with EDF's new nuke in Normandy - the nerve!

INTERVIEWS: Dr. Alex Rosen of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, who takes on and eviscerates the United Nations’ UNSCEAR report that criminally underplays the radiation dangers from Fukushima; International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War; www.ippnw.org Epidemiologist Joseph Mangano, executive director of Radiation and Public Health Project, who explains why TEPCO’s...

Special encore presentations of interviews with Dr. Alex Rosen of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, who takes on and eviscerates the United Nations' UNSCEAR report that criminally underplays the radiation dangers from Fukushima; and epidemiologist Joseph Mangano, executive director of Radiation and Public Health Project, who explains why TEPCO's interpretation of radiation data is wrong as it tries to undermine the legitimate claims of the USS Ronald Reagan sailors, who were hit with catastrophic radiation while on an humanitarian aid issue.

Special encore presentations of interviews with Dr. Alex Rosen of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, who takes on and eviscerates the United Nations' UNSCEAR report that criminally underplays the radiation dangers from Fukushima; and epidemiologist Joseph Mangano, executive director of Radiation and Public Health Project, who explains why TEPCO's interpretation of radiation data is wrong as it tries to undermine the legitimate claims of the USS Ronald Reagan sailors, who were hit with catastrophic radiation while on an humanitarian aid issue.

FEATURED INTERVIEW: Dr. Alex Rosen, a German pediatrician and Vice President of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) in Germany, cites his organization’s recently published Critical Analysis of the UNSCEAR (United Nations Scientific Committee On The Effects Of Atomic Radiation) report on Fukushima that seriously – some might say criminally — minimizes...

INTERVIEW: Alex Rosen, a German pediatrician who is Vice President of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War in Germany and a former Vice chair of the International IPPNW Board of Directors. He uses that organization's recently published Critical Analysis of the UNSCEAR radiation report on Fukushima to decode its flawed methodology and demolish its credibility. NUMNUTZ OF THE WEEK - kids "education" program from Fukushima City government, "Let's Build a Radiation Resistant Body!" contains nothing but measures guaranteed to expose the kids to more radiation. Why does Japan so hate its children? PLUS: WIPP management gets a monetary bonus for "excellence" five days before radleak shuts it down, possibly forever; PM Abe-baby vows to reopen nukes in Japan "by some means or another;" and three separate US nuclear facilities inspire another "DUCK! and Cover" report.

INTERVIEW: Alex Rosen, a German pediatrician who is Vice President of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War in Germany and a former Vice chair of the International IPPNW Board of Directors. He uses that organization's recently published Critical Analysis of the UNSCEAR radiation report on Fukushima to decode its flawed methodology and demolish its credibility. NUMNUTZ OF THE WEEK - kids "education" program from Fukushima City government, "Let's Build a Radiation Resistant Body!" contains nothing but measures guaranteed to expose the kids to more radiation. Why does Japan so hate its children? PLUS: WIPP management gets a monetary bonus for "excellence" five days before radleak shuts it down, possibly forever; PM Abe-baby vows to reopen nukes in Japan "by some means or another;" and three separate US nuclear facilities inspire another "DUCK! and Cover" report.

In 1983 Gerry started a ginger group, Engineers for Social Responsibility. The president of the New Zealand Institution of Engineers, Sir John Ingram (also chair of NZ Steel) tagged them ‘the lunatic fringe’, but his successor Alec Stirrat was kinder. He called them ‘the conscience of the engineering profession’.In the early days of ESR, some uninformed IPENZ members expressed their concerns;“that ESR is an activist group associating with non-engineers known to incite treason".This was initially concerned with the the possibility of Global Nuclear War and the conservative element in NZ, wanted NZ to remain within the Western Alliances's Nuclear Umbrella. In association with International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) and Scientists Against Nuclear Arms (SANA), ESR under the Chairmanship of Professor Jack Woodward prepared a series of 17 fact sheets. These sheets were designed to describe in a concise manner important facts from scientific and medical literature about the dangers of nuclear war in a way which could be easily understood by non-technical people.The fact sheets were distributed to secondary schools, and libraries in the Auckland area, members of Parliament and other decision makers throughout New Zealand, and to certain embassies and South Pacific heads of state. Users were encouraged to copy and redistribute the sheets. The sheets receive much commendation.So what of today, how are we as an individual and as a collective to be socially responsible? Especially as we learn daily of the escalating challenges that come to meet us via the local and global media plus earth changes and strange weather patterns.This interview with Gerry Coates in a more private capacity, looks at the current challenges facing us as both a nation and from a global perspective.Recent news of the huge melting of ice in the Arctic circle and that between January and July 2012, the United States has broken 40,000 heat temperature records, ramps up the challenge of global warming, even as we have suffered from the opposite swing of the pendulum and experience cold wet snaps here in NZ.The question of population too is an ever increasing dilemma that is verging on a crisis.However, due to the overwhelming nature of the predicaments that we are faced with, how do we 'snap' out of our indifference to what is 'lapping up' to the very foundations of our civilization?Covering diverse subject matter of:Dealing with business people who think that they can carry on with business as usual, as if there is no concern to exploiting our planet continuously.Where are our champions for our planet and future?Mentioning James Lovelock, Al Gore and their drawbacks and the forthright articulations by David Suzuki and previously Teddy Goldsmith and the sad loss of Sir Peter Blake. Plus Tim Flannery who recently stated 'if we want change we have to get people to get the politicians to change.'In particular we need a business champion with drive, mana and charisma.Lester Brown, of World Watch …… his new book called World on the Edge covers three ways of instigating the much needed change if we are to bring our civilization back from the very brink of collapse. This will entail huge limits to growth. Limits that we have in many ways already exceeded.Covering the costing of finite resources and the priorities of expenditure re armaments and that well over a trillion dollars is spent by the global military annually.Plus, what is the 'true' story regarding the amount of oil we have = peak oil?All this and more as we as a global family urgently have to come to grips with denial to avoidance to indifference ... to our common future.www.esr.org.nz As well as this excellent NZ site;http://hot-topic.co.nz

On Sunday October 9, 2011, what was billed as the great nuclear debate, nuclear weapons making in Kansas City, was held at the University of Missouri Kansas City. The event was cosponsored by The Community of Reason KC, with the KC Chapter of Physicians for Social Responsibility and KC Peace Planters.  The Maurice Smith, retired staff engineer at the National Nuclear Security Administration’s Kansas City nuclear weapons parts Plant, currently operated by Honeywell, debated Ira Helfand, M.D., Emergency Medicine Physician in Leeds, Mass., Physicians for Social Responsibility Board Member and Vice President of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War. Mr. Smith argued in support of continuing the nuclear weapons manufacturing program as part of a policy of deterrance. Dr. Helfand argued against nuclear weapons production and supported steps to reach a nuclear weapons-free world. The debate was moderated by Jabulani Leffal, host of KCUR FM’s Central Standard. Click on the the pod icon above or the .mp3 filename below to listen to the show, or right-click and choose "save target as" to save a copy of the audio file to your computer.  You can also subscribe to the podcast, for free, at the iTunes store or your podcast directory.  If you have any comments or questions about the show or any problems accessing the files, send an email to: mail@tellsomebody.us 

Aired 07/25/10 TAD DALEY, author, APOLCALYPSE NEVER: Forging the Path to a Nuclear Weapon Free World TAD DALEY, J.D., Ph.D., is the Writing Fellow with International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, the 1985 Nobel Peace Laureate organization. He spent several years as a member of the International Policy Department at RAND, where many of the nuclear theories of the Cold War era originally were forged. He has served as a speechwriter and policy advisor to Congressman Dennis Kucinich, Congresswoman Diane Watson, and the late Senator Alan Cranston -- and once ran for U.S. Congress himself to represent mid-city Los Angeles. The LA WEEKLY said about his campaign: "Tad Daley boasts the most impressive credentials and much the most thoughtful platform of all the 16 candidates in the race .... (His ideas are) as sensible as they are unconventional." Daley has written for the Los Angeles Times, USA TODAY, the Christian Science Monitor, Tikkun, and frequently in the at HuffingtonPost.com, TruthDig.com, AlterNet.org, TruthOut.org, and CommonDreams.org. His first book, APOLCALYPSE NEVER: Forging the Path to a Nuclear Weapon Free World, has recently been published.

If you experience any technical difficulties with this video or would like to make an accessibility-related request, please send a message to digicomm@uchicago.edu. Physician, author, and Nobel Prize-winning peace activist Bernard Lown will discuss his new memoir, Prescription for Survival: A Doctor's Journey to End Nuclear Madness. The inventor of the defibrillator, Dr. Lown was also a peace and anti-nuclear activist, participating in the founding of Physicians for Social Responsibility in 1960 and of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War in 1981. In 1985, IPPNW was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Dr. Lown is currently Professor of Cardiology Emeritus at the Harvard School of Public Health.

In this two-part program, Peace Talks Radio salutes "Peacemaking Elders"- people who, well into their eighties, are still working for peace. Our guests in Part One are Juanita Nelson and Ruth Imber. Juanita and Wally Nelson were among the first to take the step of refusing to pay taxes to the government because they did not want their tax dollars to go to military spending. Starting in 1948, they lived simply below the taxable income line and were active in civil rights and social justice movements. Wally Nelson died in 2002 at the age of 93. Juanita Nelson, now 85, continues on her own, living in the house she and Wally Nelson built together from salvaged material. She has no electricity, no plumbing, and grows her own food on a small tract of land in western Massachusetts. Juanita Nelson is one of our guests. Ruth Imber, 83, is a fixture in the peace and justice community in Albuquerque, New Mexico. She's a poet, writer and singing member of the "Raging Grannies." Carol Boss hosts the conversation with these two inspiring women. Our Part Two guest is Dr. Bernard Lown, who co-founded International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) and Physicians for Social Responsibility. In 1985, despite active opposition from the U.S. government and NATO, he and a Soviet cardiologist colleague, Evgeni Chazov, accepted the Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of IPPNW. Now 87, Lown has written Prescription for Suvival: A Doctor's Journey to End Nuclear Madness. He talks with Peace Talks Radio producer Paul Ingles.

In this two-part program, Peace Talks Radio salutes "Peacemaking Elders"- people who, well into their eighties, are still working for peace. Our guests in Part One are Juanita Nelson and Ruth Imber. Juanita and Wally Nelson were among the first to take the step of refusing to pay taxes to the government because they did not want their tax dollars to go to military spending. Starting in 1948, they lived simply below the taxable income line and were active in civil rights and social justice movements. Wally Nelson died in 2002 at the age of 93. Juanita Nelson, now 85, continues on her own, living in the house she and Wally Nelson built together from salvaged material. She has no electricity, no plumbing, and grows her own food on a small tract of land in western Massachusetts. Juanita Nelson is one of our guests. Ruth Imber, 83, is a fixture in the peace and justice community in Albuquerque, New Mexico. She's a poet, writer and singing member of the "Raging Grannies." Carol Boss hosts the conversation with these two inspiring women. Our Part Two guest is Dr. Bernard Lown, who co-founded International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) and Physicians for Social Responsibility. In 1985, despite active opposition from the U.S. government and NATO, he and a Soviet cardiologist colleague, Evgeni Chazov, accepted the Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of IPPNW. Now 87, Lown has written Prescription for Suvival: A Doctor's Journey to End Nuclear Madness. He talks with Peace Talks Radio producer Paul Ingles.

A talk by Bernard Lown, MD. Physician, author, and Nobel Prize-winning peace activist Bernard Lown discusses his new memoir, "Prescription for Survival: A Doctor's Journey to End Nuclear Madness". The inventor of the defibrillator, Dr. Lown was also a peace and anti-nuclear activist, participating in the founding of Physicians for Social Responsibility in 1960 and of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War in 1981. In 1985, IPPNW was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Dr. Lown is currently Professor of Cardiology Emeritus at the Harvard School of Public Health. From the World Beyond the Headlines Series.

A talk by Bernard Lown, MD. Physician, author, and Nobel Prize-winning peace activist Bernard Lown discusses his new memoir, "Prescription for Survival: A Doctor's Journey to End Nuclear Madness". The inventor of the defibrillator, Dr. Lown was also a peace and anti-nuclear activist, participating in the founding of Physicians for Social Responsibility in 1960 and of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War in 1981. In 1985, IPPNW was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Dr. Lown is currently Professor of Cardiology Emeritus at the Harvard School of Public Health. From the World Beyond the Headlines Series.

A talk by Bernard Lown, MD. Physician, author, and Nobel Prize-winning peace activist Bernard Lown discusses his new memoir, "Prescription for Survival: A Doctor's Journey to End Nuclear Madness". The inventor of the defibrillator, Dr. Lown was also a peace and anti-nuclear activist, participating in the founding of Physicians for Social Responsibility in 1960 and of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War in 1981. In 1985, IPPNW was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Dr. Lown is currently Professor of Cardiology Emeritus at the Harvard School of Public Health. From the World Beyond the Headlines Series.