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Disarmament DiplomacyIssue No. 14, April 1997US Medical Groups Call for NWFWOn 6 March, at the National Press Club in Washington, four US medical groups - the Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR), the American Medical Association, the American College of Physicians, and the American Public Health Association - issued a joint call for radical progress, beginning at the Helsinki Summit, towards a nuclear-weapon-free world. The groups' hopes and objectives were set out by former PSR President Dr. Ira Helfand:"The best way to prevent the use of nuclear weapons is to eradicate them... The command and control policies of the US and Russia are so unreliable that the dangers of accidental nuclear war are greater than ever. When missiles can be launched in less than four minutes, it doesn't allow much time to compensate for accidents and false alarms. As physicians, we find this situation unacceptable. We are calling on Clinton and Yeltsin...to affirm their commitment to the abolition of nuclear weapons and to put this issue at the top of their political agenda. Specifically, we want a framework agreement on START III and a timetable for removing all existing nuclear weapons from alert status." Report: Physicians announce unified call for nuclear disarmament, US Newswire, 6 March. © 1998 The Acronym Institute. |