Helen Caldicott

Helen Caldicott
Helen Caldicott, October 2007
Born	(1938-08-07) 7 August 1938 (age 78) Melbourne, Australia
Occupation	Physician, activist
Spouse(s)	William Caldicott
Children	Philip, Penny, William Jr
Website	Helen Caldicott's official website

Helen Mary Caldicott (born 7 August 1938) is an Australian physician, author, and anti-nuclear advocate who has founded several associations dedicated to opposing the use of nuclear power, depleted uranium munitions, nuclear weapons, nuclear weapons proliferation, and military action in general.

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Caldicott became a leader in the antinuclear movement in the United States through her role in reviving the organization Physicians for Social Responsibility. She also helped to found several other organizations which worked to abolish controlled nuclear fission. In the 1980s, she was effective in raising support and bringing nuclear issues to the forefront. Caldicott splits her time between the United States and Australia and continues to lecture widely to promote her views on nuclear energy use, including weapons and power.

Helen Caldicott was born on August 7, 1938, in Melbourne, Australia, the daughter of a factory manager, Philip Broinowski, and Mary Mona Enyd (Coffey) Broinowski, an interior designer. She attended public-school except for four years at Fintona Girls School in Adelaide, a private secondary school. When she was 17, she enrolled at the University of Adelaide Medical School; she graduated in 1961 with a B.S. in surgery and an M.B. in medicine (the equivalent of an American M.D.). In 1962, she married William Caldicott, a pediatric radiologist, who has worked with her in her campaigns. They have three children, Philip, Penny, and William Jr.

Caldicott and her husband moved to Boston in 1966 where she entered a three-year fellowship in nutrition at Harvard Medical School. Returning to Adelaide in 1969, she accepted a position in the renal unit of Queen Elizabeth Hospital. In the early 1970s, she completed a year's residency and a two-year internship in pediatrics. She also set up a clinic for cystic fibrosis. In 1977, she joined the staff of the Children's Hospital Medical Center in Boston, Massachusetts, and taught pediatrics at the Harvard Medical School from 1977 to 1978.