Page 33 - BusinessWest May 16, 2022

Seizing the Moment
Physician Says Momentum May Be Building to Ban Nuclear Weapons
By George O’brien
Dr. Ira Helfand notes that, since Russia became the second nation to produce nuclear weapons in the late 1940s, the
threat of a global nuclear conflict has always been real.
To most, though, it has never really seemed real, except for the duration of the Cold War, which officially ended more than 30 years ago, and especially that two-week crack in time in 1962 that came to be known as the Cuban Missile Crisis, said Helfand, noting that for many, that
“If there is to be any good that comes out of this terrible disaster in Ukraine, perhaps it will be an understanding of the need around the world to eliminate nuclear weapons.”
event is only something to be read about, not something they lived through.
But the events in Ukraine are changing this narrative, and in a profound — and urgent — way, said Helfand, a retired emergency room
physician at Mercy Medical Center and co-chair of the Physicians for Social Responsibility’s Nuclear Weapons Abolition Committee, a name that clearly speaks to its mission.
He told BusinessWest that recent events — not just those in Ukraine but also those in North Korea, as well — have made the threat of nuclear war as real as ever. And while this is certainly
a scary time because of these threats, it might also be considered a time of opportunity when it comes to the Nuclear Weapons Abolition Com- mittee and its stated mission.
“If there is to be any good that comes out of this terrible disaster in Ukraine, perhaps it will be an understanding of the need around the world to eliminate nuclear weapons,” he said. “Which will lead to effective political action to achieve that.”
In recent months, Helfand, who has, over the years, spoken to groups ranging from local Rota- ry clubs to special sessions of the United Nations General Assembly on the subject of preventing nuclear war, has been ramping up such efforts — through speaking engagements, op-ed pieces, and interviews with media out like this one — and using current events to bring more attention to a 75-year-old issue.
The initiative is called the ‘Back from the Brink Campaign,’ which is based on the nuclear-
Dr. Ira Helfand says the war in Ukraine presents an opportunity to gain real progress in ongoing efforts to ban the use of nuclear weapons.
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