Nuclear Hotseat

United Nations report on the generational impact of nuclear radiation on women and children, written by Mary Olson of Generational Radiation Impact Project and Dr. Amanda M. Nichols. 

We all accept as proven scientific and medical fact that human exposure to ionizing radiation from nuclear weapons and their production is damaging to human health. But how do we know that? Who figures out how bad it can be? How much radiation we can be exposed to without risking our health? And how valid are those measurements?

We learn the alarming truth behind how those numbers were generated and what needs to be done instead from today’s guests, co-authors of the new report for the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research, Gender and Ionizing Radiation: Towards a New Research Agenda Addressing Disproportionate Harm:

• Mary Olson holds a degree in Evolutionary Biology and has been an educator on radiation health impacts while serving nuclear-impacted communities… and so much more. Her website is RadiationProject.org
• Amanda M. Nichols, PhD, is a Postdoctoral Researcher in the Environmental Studies Program at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Nichols research focuses on illuminating the role of women in the North American anti-nuclear movement.  Email contact: [email protected]

Gender and Ionizing Radiation: Towards a New Research Agenda Addressing Disproportionate Harm is cornerstone information in the movement to rid our planet of nukes. It is available for free downloa or pdf HERE.

Co-author Amanda Nichols holds up copy of the report to Mary Olson (lower picture) and Libbe HaLevy

Further References mentioned in the interview and additional Resources:

• Nichols, Amanda M. Women on the Edge of Time: Grief and Power in the Nuclear Age. PhD Dissertation. University of Florida (2021). https://original-ufdc.uflib.ufl.edu/UFE0057378/00001.
• Nichols, Amanda M. “Nuclear Energy,” in Chad Seales (ed.) The Handbook of Religion and American Culture. 2025.
• Nichols, Amanda M. “Uranium and Religion: Toward a Decolonial Temporality of Extraction,” Religions, 16(1). 2025. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel16010016.
• Olson, Mary. “Atomic Radiation Is More Harmful to Women,” Nuclear Information Resource Services, 2011. https://www.nirs.org/wp-content/uploads/radiation/radhealth/radiationwomen.pdf.
• Olson, Mary. “Disproportionate Impact of Radiation and Radiation Regulation,” Interdisciplinary Science Reviews 44, no. 2 (2019): 131–39.https://doi.org/10.1080/03080188.2019.1603864. 
• Gender and Radiation Impact Project Website: https://www.genderandradiation.org/.

For BEIR VII Reports

• NAS-NRC. “Health Risks from Exposure to Low Levels of Ionizing Radiation: BEIR VII – Phase 2,” Committee to Assess Health Risks from Exposure to Low Levels of Ionizing Radiation, Board on Radiation Effects Research, National Research Council of the National Academies. National Academies Press, 2006. http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?isbn=030909156X.
• NAS-NRC. “National Research Council – Committee on the Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiations: Health Effects of Exposures to Low Levels of Ionizing Radiation: BEIR V.” National Academy Press, 1990. http:// www.nap.edu/openbook.php?isbn=0309039959.

On International Radiological Protections and Reference Man

• ICRP. International Commission on Radiological Protection. 2002. Basic Anatomical and Physiological Data for Use in Radiological Protection Reference Values (2002). http://www.icrp.org/publication.asp?id=icrp%20publication%2089.
• ICRP. International Commission on Radiological Protection. Publication 103: The 2007 Recommendations of the International Commission on Radiological Protection (2007). https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/ANIB_37_2-4. 
• ICRP. International Commission on Radiological Protection. Publication 147: Use of Dose Quantities in Radiological Protection. 50, no. 1 (2021): 9–82. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146645320911864.
• ICRP. International Commission on Radiological Protection. “Official Definition of Reference Man.” Report of the Task Group on Reference Man. [ICRP Publication] No. 23. Oxford: Pergamon Press (1975). Adopted October 1974. Page 4. https://ieer.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/definition-of-reference-man.pdf.

A recap of the United Nations meetings on the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) with International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapon's (ICAN) Head of Media Alistair Burnett and guest Alicia Sanders-Zakre, Head of Policy. 

Karl Grossman (above) and Frank Melli, with book

Award-winning environmental journalist Karl Grossman and producer/media activist and strategist Frank Melli, the team behind the long-running program Enviro Close-Up, on their new book which is based on the interviews from that show: EnviroVideo Book 1: Repurposing the TV series into a handbook for action and change.

The NRC has thrown in the towel to the White House, ceding its safety oversight mandate for risky new reactors to the promotion-oriented Department of Energy. Here's Linda Pentz Gunter with this week's Nuclear Hotseat Hot Story.

AI in charge of nuclear? Well, here's one example of what it might do that it really ought NOT to do...

Massive icebergs from Jakobshavn Glacier melting in Disko Bay on sunny summer evening, Ilulissat, Greenland.

• Tim Deere-Jones is a marine biologist – a radiation researcher and consultant – who specializes in analysis of the radiation threats to our planet’s waters from a wide range of nuclear sources. Here he provides a SPECIAL report produced exclusively for Nuclear Hotseat on the Nuclear Arctic radiation dangers. 
  
  We spoke on Monday, January 24, 2022, just as the United Nations COP 27 conference was winding down.

• PDF DOWNLOAD of the text of this presentation – CLICK HERE
• CONTACT for Tim Deere-Jones:  [email protected]

Heads up on drone dangers!  Whether it’s hitting nuclear power plants or going rogue, autonomous drones are our latest lethal threat.  Here’s Linda Pentz Gunter with this week’s Nuclear Hotseat Hot Story.

John LaForge of Nukewatch -  mid-interview with Nuclear Hotseat's Libbe HaLevy

• The United Nations Review Conference on the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty is in its third of four weeks, and while one can hope that the nations of the world come together to condemn nuclear weapons and move us down the road to their complete elimination, there's a lot standing in its way.  That's why we talk with John LaForge. He is the co-founder of Nukewatch, a Wisconsin-based environmental and peace action group, dedicated to the abolition of nuclear power, weapons and continued radioactive waste production. John is just back from New York, where he attended the first four days of the NPT meetings at the United Nations.  Here, he casts his keen and often skeptical eye on what took place there - information not necessarily covered in mainstream media or even the more hope-tinted reports from anti-nuclear NGOs.  Eye opening insights from a man who has done prison time for his peaceful protests of nuclear weapons. 

• Ray Acheson, Reaching Critical Will.
• NPT Article Collection
• Nukewatch

• Languaging counts!  So when is a "renaissance" not a Renaissance?  When nuclear hijacks the word!

If you get 'em while they're young, you've got 'em!  That's the adage followed by the nuclear industry with their propaganda, uh. outreach to young high school students and even the Scouts! 

Screenshot of chart showing increase in infant mortality in San Luis Obspo county since the Diablo
Canyon nuclear reactors began operation.  From the April 28, 2026 press conference by Radiation and Public Health Project (see full press conference below) 

Radiation and Public Health Project (RPHP) just released a new study on infant mortality rates in San Luis Obispo County in proximity to the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant, comparing the levels in infant deaths and premature births from before the nuclear reactors were built to today.  Epidemiologist Joseph Mangano, founder of RPHP, narrates the presentation along with long time RPHP spokesperson and current Vice President Christie Brinkley.  The press conference announcing the spike in child health problems for those who live within 30 miles of the reactors took place on April 28, 2026.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MINLTMTR6Lc

Full press conference by RPHP on Infant Mortality rates near the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant

Why so many state governors seem to have taken leave of their senses and are all scrambling to get their nuclear Labubus:

Nuclear Labubu, inspired by Linda Pentz Gunter,
created by Charles Langley of PublicWatchdogs.org.

Linda's book, NO TO NUCLEAR: Why nuclear power destroys lives, derails climate progress and provokes war, is available everywhere responsible books are sold - and if you local bookstore doesn't have it in stock, have them order several copies - one for you and one for the people you tell about it.

• You can order directly from the publisher at:  https://www.plutobooks.com/product/no-to-nuclear
• Or on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/No-Nuclear-Destroys-Progress-Provokes/dp/0745352103/