This segment begins with a news clip from Utah, January 2012. The Downwinders are meeting for the first Day of Remembrance and mourn the many who died of fallout from bombs exploded at the Nevada Test Site. They are the sick and dying proof of the dangers of radiation.
Dr. John Gofman was one of the prominent whistle blowers of the nuclear age. In 1970 he was one of the first to warn of the danger, and call for the shut-down, of all nuclear power plants. Gofman came from the Manhattan Project, worked on the effects of radiation at Lawrence Livermore Lab and concluded that power plants are killers. He is the 1992 recipient of the Right Livelihood Award. He is often called the "father" of the anti-nuclear movement. Gofman died in 2007.
Thanks to Leslie Freeman and her book: Nuclear Witnesses: Insiders Speak Out, to David Ratcliffe and his web site www.ratical.org. Thanks to Egan OConnor, co-author and editor to some of John Gofmans writings and now keeper of his archives. And to Elizabeth Eielson at KPFA Radio and the Pacifica Archives.
John Gofman studied under Glenn Seaborg at UC Berkeley and, in 1943, earned a Ph.D. in nuclear physical chemistry for his work on, and co-discovery of, Uranium 232 and 233. He finished Med. School in 1946 and became Professor of Molecular and Cell Biology at UC Berkeley. He made a number of major discoveries working with cholesterol, lipoproteins, coronary heart disease, arteriosclerosis, and cancer. Gofman was so widely acclaimed as scientist in both fields, nuclear chemistry and medicine, that he was asked to be part of two major projects at the Lawrence Livermore National Lab. His task was to evaluate the health effects of radiation and radionuclide release from weapons testing, nuclear war, radioactivity in medicine, nuclear power, etc.--all of the atomic energy programs. And he was given a three million dollar budget to start. His multiyear work in this field convinced him that nuclear power plants need to closed. His research was suppressed and he was forced to resign in 1973.
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