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  International Anti-Food Irradiation Week 2004Other Countries UNITED STATESPennsylvania Residents of Milford Square, Pennsylvania, and other concerned citizens, will gather to protest food irradiation and the food irradiation facility CFC Logistics, which is installed in their township. This annual day of action will open with a ceremony by the Lenape Nation, a Native American group whose ancestral land encompasses Milford. Speeches by Patty Lovera of Public Citizen and Dr. Philip Stein of Nocobalt-4-Food will follow, with the keynote speech delivered by internationally renowned environmental and anti-nuclear activist Dr. Helen Caldicott. Nocobalt-4-Food, an advocacy group that opposes food irradiation, and the Lenape Nation are the organizers for this protest. Events in Australia, the Phillipines, Canada, and the European Union are likely as well, and will be detailed when more information is available. Click here to find out about last year’s actions. Event information: Keynote speaker will be: Dr. Helen Caldicott Also speaking - Patty Lovera of Public Citizen 1 to 3pm Quakertown High School ********************************************** Preceding above, rain or shine, at same locale as last year (in a field - wear boots) ~ 1920 Allentown Rd, Milford Square, PA The Gathering Protecting & Healing The Lenape Homeland People United Against Nuclear Irradiation Jim Beer - Spokesperson We will be honored to be led by the Lenape Nation of PA in a Sacred Prayer Ceremony followed by a traditional Round Dance or Friendship Dance - 10am to noon ************************************************************** Directions to High School - from the Northeast Extension of the PA Turnpike, take the Quakertown Exit #44. End of ramp turn left onto Rt 663. Travel north 3 miles until reaching Rt 309. Turn right onto Rt 309 south. Go 4/10 mile and turn left at 1st traffic light onto Park Avenue. After about 1/2 mile High School is on right. Directions to The Gathering with the Lenape Nation of PA - from the Northeast Extension of the PA Turnpike, take the Quakertown Exit #44. End of ramp turn left onto Rt 663. Travel north 1 mile. At the second traffic light turn right onto Allentown Road. Go 7/10 mile - event is on right at the bottom of the hill at 1920 Allentown Road behind old stone farm house. www.nocobalt-4-food.org 215-552-8903 Dr. Caldicott’s Biography: Dr. Caldicott’s public lectures address the New Nuclear Danger. She outlines how we arrived to a more dangerous place after the end of the Cold War, and why the New Nuclear Danger is the single greatest threat to the world’s public health, namely the profound medical, environmental, political and moral consequences of perpetuating nuclear weapons, power and waste. The single most articulate and passionate advocate of citizen action to remedy the nuclear and environmental crises, Dr Helen Caldicott, has devoted the last 35 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. 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., Boston, Mass., until 1980 when she resigned to work full time on the prevention of nuclear war. While living in the United States from 1977 to 1986, she co-founded the 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. The international 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. She moved back to the United States in 1995, lecturing at the New School for Social Research on the Media, Global Politics and the Environment, hosting a weekly radio talk show on WBAI (Pacifica), and becoming the Founding President of the STAR (Standing for Truth About Radiation) Foundation. Dr Caldicott has received many prizes and awards for her work, most recently the Lannan Foundation's 2003 Prize for Cultural Freedom, 19 honorary doctoral degrees, and was personally nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by Linus Pauling - himself a Nobel Laureate. The Smithsonian Institute has named Dr Caldicott as one of the most influential women of the 20th Century. She has written for numerous publications and has authored five books, Nuclear Madness (1979, revised edition by W.W. Norton in 1994), Missile Envy (1984, Bantam), If You Love This Planet: A Plan to Heal the Earth (1992, W.W. Norton) and A Desperate Passion: An Autobiography (1996, W.W. Norton; published as A Passionate Life in Australia by Random House). Her most recent book is The New Nuclear Danger: George Bush’s Military Industrial Complex, published in April 2001 by The New Press in the United States, Scribe Publishing in Australia and New Zealand, Lemniscaat Publishers in The Netherlands, and Hugendubel Verlag in Germany. She also has been the subject of several films, including Eight Minutes to Midnight, nominated for an Academy Award in 1981, and If You Love This Planet, which won the Academy Award for best documentary in 1982. Dr Caldicott is also the Founder and President of the Nuclear Policy Research Institute (NPRI), headquartered in Washington DC. NPRI’s mission is ongoing public education campaign in the mainstream media about the often-underestimated dangers of nuclear weapons, power programs and policies. OTHER COUNTRIESAustralia Food Irradiation Watch is organizing this tour; the Australian public is largely opposed to food irradiation and very concerned about potential health effects. The first large-scale food irradiation plant in Australia is being planned, which has increased public opposition and awareness of food irradiation. Public Events will be held in the following cities: Melbourne, Canberra, Sydney, Brisbane and Cairns. Featuring international keynote speaker Wenonah Hauter National speakers include (vary with venue): “November 24th is International No Food Irradiation Day in Australia. Hold an event in your region and join with others on a global scale to oppose this unwanted, unsafe and unnecessary food technology - food irradiation.” See http://www.foodirradiationinfo.org for details on their campaign and the tour.
Sierra Club Canada is hosting a press conference to protest a proposal before the Canadian government that would expand food irradiation. The press conference will be in Ottawa at the Parliamentary Press Gallery. Click here for more information.
The Danish Active Consumers’ Organization is planning an action on supermarkets during Global Anti- Food Irradiation Week. For more information, contact: Klaus Mevin Jensen, melvin@aktiveforbrugere.dk
Public Citizen released a European-wide press release on food irradiation during this week. Click here to read the press release. Or for more information, contact: Morgan Ody
Movimento dei Consumatori (Consumer Movement) will host a press conference in one of the main squares in Parma, the new seat of the European Food Safety Agency, and will distribute facts sheet and brochures on food irradiation. They are advocating for a moratorium on approvals for new irradiated food products; further studies on the toxicity of alkylcyclobutanones; and national governments and the European Council of Ministers to start a procedure to determine the Daily Acceptable Intake at EU as well as Codex levels. Additionally, Movimento dei Consumatori will be contributing to a television special on food irradiation produced by Italian State Television RAI 1. This will be broadcast on November 14th. For more information, contact: Giulio Labbro Francia
In the Philippines, a number of consultations, dialogues and workshop-forums were held during the Global Week of Action against Food Irradiation. A forum with students was held in the University of the Philippines in Los Banos [UPLB], Laguna - 40 kilometers South of Metro Manila. UPLB is the foremost agricultural university in the Philippines, if not Southeast Asia. IRDF also conducted two dialogues with the Quarantine Service of the Bureau of Plant Industry [BPI] and the Project Development Service [PDS] of the Dept. of Agriculture. Finally, IRDF met with staff and members of Parliament to discuss their position on irradiation. (Updated on December 6, 2004) more resources
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