“Do not let the nuclear armed states lead us down the path to death.”

EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION: Dr. Ira Helfand delivered a compelling statement on behalf of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) at the Third Preparatory Committee for the 2026 Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) at the United Nations Headquarters in New York City, 30 April 2025. He concluded the statement with a call to action: "The world is at a crossroads.  We have before us the choice of life or death.  Do not let the nuclear armed states lead us down the path to death." 

Having worked in emergency medicine, Dr. Helfand knows that there will not be enough - if any at all - emergency rooms, let alone burn unit beds, should even a "limited" nuclear war break out. The (initial) survivors will be on their own, and they will envy the dead! It is not a matter of if, but when, humanity suffers what will be the final war, so long as countries continue to brandish nuclear weapons. The U.S. is building up its nuclear arsenal once again, setting the (wrong) example for other countries, rather than leading the way to a world without the threat of nuclear war. 

Will we choose life... or death???

This statement was originally published on April 30, 2025 at the IPPNW Peace & Health Blog. Dr. Helfand is an IPPNW Board Member.

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Distinguished delegates, esteemed colleagues, and honored guests,

Dr. Ira Helfand delivering IPPNW’s statement to the 2025 NPT Preparatory Committee

Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today. I am not a diplomat. I am an Emergency Room doctor who has spent the last 50 years speaking with patients and their families. So let me talk to you now as I would to the family of a critically ill patient.

Because that is the situation we face. The world, for which we are collectively responsible, is in terrible danger. Nine countries, five of them parties to this Treaty, have chosen to build arsenals of nuclear weapons that effectively hold all of humanity, including their own citizens, hostage. They want these weapons because they make them strong and allow them to bully the rest of the world. They justify these weapons with the illusion that they offer security. That is a dangerous lie. These weapons are the greatest threat to our survival and pose an existential threat to civilization.

Like the chronic smoker who lives in denial about the risk of developing lung cancer, we have largely convinced ourselves that nuclear war will never happen. The truth is, we are closer to a nuclear war today than we have ever been and, yet, we go about our daily life as though this sword of Damocles were not hanging over us.

Studies show that a large-scale nuclear war between the United States and Russia, who together possess nearly 90% of the world’s nuclear weapons, would end life as we know it. Most of this city, including this very building we are sitting in, would be vaporized and 12 to 15 million people would simply disappear. Across both countries, an estimated 200-300 million people would be killed in the first half hour. Survivors would be left in a radioactive waste field with no electric grid, no internet, no cell phones, no health care, no food distribution system, no banking system, and no system for maintaining law and order. In the following months, most of those who initially survived would die—from radiation poisoning, epidemic disease, exposure, and starvation.  

But this is only part of the story. The impacts of this war would ripple far beyond the borders of the US and Russia. The enormous fires that consumed the cities of Russia and America would loft millions of tons of soot into the upper atmosphere, blocking out the sun and causing global temperatures to plummet by an average of 10 degrees C. In the interior regions of North America and Eurasia temperatures would drop 25 to 30 degrees C. We have not seen temperatures that cold since the last Ice Age. 

Under these conditions, ecosystems that have evolved since the end of that Ice Age will collapse; food production will stop and, according to a landmark study published in 2022, 6 billion people, three quarters of humanity, will starve in the first two years. The study stopped at 2 years. The famine would not, and we do not know what the ultimate death toll will be. That same study showed that a much smaller-scale war, such as one between India and Pakistan, will cause enough climate disruption to trigger a famine that will kill a quarter of humanity—2 billion people globally in the first 2 years.

The nuclear powers assure us that this will never happen — that deterrence will prevent nuclear weapons from ever being used. They push this myth even as they threaten to use these very weapons.

But the truth is that nuclear weapons do not possess some magical power that guarantees they will never be used. In fact, there have been numerous incidents throughout the nuclear weapons era when we have come within minutes of the holocaust I have just described. We have not survived because deterrence works, because our leaders have been all wise, our military policies and doctrines sound and our technology perfect. We have survived, to use the words of former US Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, because, “We lucked out…It was luck that prevented nuclear war.”

Five of the nine nuclear powers have a binding obligation under Article VI of this Treaty to engage in good faith negotiations for the elimination of nuclear weapons. Yet they have ignored this obligation for nearly 6 decades. The US and Russia have actually gone further by abandoning every nuclear arms control agreement except for New START, and that will expire next February. These failures, taken together with the destabilizing and deadly wars in Ukraine and Gaza, are causing some non-nuclear parties to the NPT to seek access to nuclear weapons. 

When 121 non nuclear nations came together to uphold Article VI and negotiated the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), the nuclear armed states chose not to join that historic effort but to boycott the negotiations and do everything they could to undermine the new Treaty using the bizarre claim, straight out of 1984’s Ministry of Truth, that the TPNW “undermined” the NPT. This review conference needs to call out their horrific failure to honor their Article VI obligations. The N-9 should address any concerns with the TPNW by meaningfully engaging with States Parties and joining the Treaty’s official proceedings. 

They must come together, agree to a detailed timetable to eliminate their nuclear arsenals, adhere to the TPNW’s provisions, and join the Treaty at the earliest possible date. 

The world is at a crossroads.  We have before us the choice of life or death.  Do not let the nuclear armed states lead us down the path to death.

Yes, NUKES are bad... very bad!!! Will someone listen now???

Friends,

Ira Helfand, co-president of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War and a past president of Physicians for Social Responsibility has just published an updated report on the effects of a limited nuclear war.

In the updated study reported in Nuclear Famine: Two Billion People at Risk?, researchers report that the climatic effects of a "limited" nuclear war between Pakistan and India would cut crop production worldwide, putting up to 2 billion people at risk of starvation.

The previous report (Nuclear Famine: A Billion People at Risk, published in 2012) estimated one billion at risk of starvation under these circumstances.  The findings of the study conducted since then "suggest that the original report may have seriously underestimated the consequences of a limited nuclear war."

The updated report concludes (among other things) that there is an "urgent need to move with all possible speed to the negotiation of a global agreement to outlaw and eliminate nuclear weapons and the danger of nuclear war."

Some news outlets are paying serious attention to the updated report, and one of today's headlines read Nuclear War Could Mean 'Extinction of the Human Race' (in CommonDreams.org).

Although Dr. Helfand's report is of great importance we should be very clear - This is not news! The human race has been living under the threat of extinction by nuclear weapons since the early days of the Cold War when the United States and Soviet Union amassed arsenals capable of destroying life on Earth (as we know it).  Even today, decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the U.S. and Russia (along with the declared and undeclared nuclear powers) have enough deployed nuclear warheads (ready to launch on warning) to destroy civilization and leave the Earth uninhabitable for generations.

My point is that as important as Helfand's report is to our efforts at the global abolition of nuclear weapons, scientists have been studying climatic effects of nuclear weapons for decades.  Independent scientists have nearly all concluded that the effects of nuclear weapons on climate would be severe and long-lasting.  Steven Starr has written extensively on climatic effects of nuclear weapons.  So far, governments have mostly either ignored their findings or done their best to discredit them.

In the case of large-scale nuclear war, beyond the climatic effects are the direct blast and radiation effects, as well as the long-term exposure of surviving populations to radioisotopes resulting from the detonation of nuclear weapons.  Aside from the millions (or more) of immediate deaths, countless more people would die in the days, weeks and months that follow from exposure to radiation, and the effects would carry on in the form of blood dyscrasias and cancers.  Of course, the destruction of infrastructure, agricultural production and just every aspect of civilization as we know it, would likely cause a near total breakdown of society.

The bottom line is that nuclear weapons are the most vile creation of humankind, and absolutely threaten humanity with extinction so long as they exist. 124 states recognized this, and delivered a joint statement to the United Nations General Assembly in October: "It is in the interest of the very survival of humanity that nuclear weapons are never used again, under any circumstances." The only viable course is to abolish nuclear weapons once and for all.

The US government is engaged in research and development toward the goal of building 12 new ballistic missile submarines, known as the SSBN(X), to replace the current OHIO Class "Trident" submarines.  They are known as Tridents because of the Trident II D-5 submarine-launched ballistic missiles they carry.  Each Trident sub carries 24 Trident missiles, each missile currently armed with approximately four warheads (maximum capacity of 8 warheads per missile).

Each warhead has an explosive yield of either 100 (W76 Warhead) or 475 kilotons (W88 Warhead). The Hiroshima bomb, for comparison, was approximately 15 kilotons.  The nuclear firepower carried on a single Trident submarine is capable of destroying an entire continent.

Trident was initially designed, manufactured and deployed during the Cold War.  It was intended as a "deterrent" to the nuclear threat posed by the Soviet Union.  The Cold War is over, and the US is planning to spend $100 billion just to build the 12 new subs.  Essentially, the US is building an archaic, Cold War nuclear weapons system, and seems to have done so without adequately justifying its future mission.

These submarines are intended for one thing only - launching thermonuclear-armed missiles at another nation.  Such a strike, however limited it might be, would have devastating consequences on those targeted (and that would include civilians) as well as those in surrounding areas as the effects of nuclear weapons cannot be controlled in space or time. They are weapons of mass murder.

While nations wring their hands with concern over Iran this week (next week it will likely be North Korea once again), the very real danger exists right now with the major nuclear-armed nations. The US and Russia still lead the way (toward omnicide) with the largest nuclear arsenals.  It is, therefore, these two nations that must lead the way toward disarmament.

So long as we hold on to Cold War thinking and outmoded concepts like "deterrence", we will continue to sleepwalk toward oblivion.  In the US, that involves the continuing rebuilding of the nuclear weapons research, development and production complex, as well as the refurbishing of existing weapons systems and the development of new ones.  Meanwhile, we lecture Iran and North Korea to NOT build nuclear weapons.

Will we lead the world (as we do now) toward a continued buildup of nuclear weapons, or will we summon the courage to lead the way toward a nuclear weapons-free future? I firmly believe that our elected leaders will not listen to logic and reason until there is a significant groundswell - led by the people.

Cindy Sheehan recently said that "The power of the people is stronger than the people in power." If that is true and history is any indicator, we need to put together a huge constituency calling on our government to lead the way toward disarmament, beginning with the scrapping of counterproductive and destabilizing programs like the SSBN(X).

Join Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action in saying NO To NEW TRIDENT.  Right after we ring in the New Year, we will be moving full speed ahead to stop this wasteful $100 billion dollar project and refocusing that money on human needs. Check out our Blog at notnt.org and sign up to be notified of updates and opportunities to get involved.

While you're at it, please join PSR's Humanitarian Threats of Nuclear Weapons Campaign.  Please also tell President Obama to send a US delegation to the upcoming (February!!!) conference in Mexico on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons.

This is a watershed moment in terms of opportunity to move the world towards nuclear disarmament. The majority of nations in the UN are calling for abolition, while the few nuclear armed powers do everything to hold on to their precious nuclear weapons.  It is time for a paradigm shift, and it is up to We the People of the World to demand change.  Each of us can and must play a role in creating this change.

Let this be the legacy we leave to future generations - a world free from the fear of nuclear omnicide.

Toward a Nuclear Weapons-Free World,

Leonard

Nuclear Weapons: Building an Informed Public

Friends,

Not too long ago Steven Starr summarized our challenges in communicating the issues surrounding nuclear weapons to the public, and how we need to communicate in order to get people's attention and get them engaged with this most important of issues.  Essentially, we need to engage people both emotionally and intellectually regarding the potential effects of nuclear weapons as well as the huge economic costs.  It's serious food for thought.
Peace,

Leonard

P.S. - Be sure to check out Steven's Website, Nuclear Darkness.

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"Although most people, if asked directly, will say that they favor the abolition of nuclear weapons, very few have any real idea of the threat which existing nuclear arsenals pose to humans and other complex forms of life. In fact, here in the U.S., most people do not even know that immense nuclear arsenals still exist, that their own nation (and Russia) have 95% of the 22,000 nuclear weapons in the world, and that they keep 2,000 strategic nuclear weapons ready to launch with only a few minutes warning. They have no idea that just one of these weapons can instantly ignite tens or hundreds of square miles of the Earth's surface into a gigantic nuclear firestorm, and that a hundred such firestorms could produce enough smoke to cause deadly climate change, leading to global nuclear famine.

"An uniformed public cannot make informed decisions. We are still conducting our political discussions about nuclear weapons in Cold War terms, focusing upon how we are "behind" if we don't "modernize" our nuclear arsenal, that we are "locked into a position of permanent inferiority" by agreements with the Russians to limit our nuclear weapons. There is absolutely no discussion of the consequences of the use of existing arsenals, particularly those maintained by the US and Russia, the dialogue is dangerously out of touch with the peer-reviewed scientific predictions that *any* nuclear conflict which detonates as little as 1% of existing nuclear arsenals in cities will likely kill at least 1 billion people through nuclear famine. We must bring current scientific understandings of what nuclear war would do to the biosphere, agriculture, ecosystems and global climate into the active debate about the need for nuclear weaponry.

"Furthermore, In a time when we cannot find enough money to maintain our schools, highways, hospitals and basic infrastructure, do we need to spend hundreds of billions of dollars to rebuild our nuclear weapons manufacturing complex and "upgrade" nuclear weapons systems? No, just the opposite, we need stop or prevent funding for such projects, which guarantee that there will be no "world without nuclear weapons." I am going to start ending my presentations with a chart which shows what we could do with the endless billions we spend on nuclear weaponry, something like what Eisenhower did with his "Cross of Iron" speech. We have to give concrete examples of what could be immediately gained through the elimination of insane spending for nuclear doomsday machines. We can combat the idea that nuclear spending creates jobs by giving examples of what could be done to construct, for example, needed alternative energy systems (wind, solar, tidal, etc.) that can begin rebuilding our own industrial infrastructure, which has been dismantled and shipped overseas.

"If we are going to get into a race with other nations, let it be a race towards a better human future. Building nuclear weapons does just the opposite, it paves the way for mass extinction of complex forms of life, including human life."

-- Steven Starr, senior scientist with Physicians for Social Responsibility

Nuclear Weapons: An Even More Inconvenient Truth!!!

Friends,

"Environmentalists: Wake up! There is a greater and more urgent threat to the climate than even global warming: the threat posed by nuclear weapons."  Thus begins a provocative and compelling post by Time.com Ecocentric Blogger Eben Harrell on February 25, 2011 (Why Nukes are the Most Urgent Environmental Threat).

Nuclear weapons, and the phenomenal risks they have always posed to the environment as well as the very survival of humanity, have long been off the radar of the environmental community.  Let's face it; they have enough to worry about with major issues like climate change, air and water pollution, ozone depletion, and genetic engineering just to mention a few.  The last thing they need on their already loaded plate is NUCLEAR WEAPONS!!!

I think it is safe to say that nuclear weapons ARE an environmental issue, and in fact probably the ultimate one at that.  Let's face it, even though global warming and its associated climate change is going to produce some pretty disastrous consequences we CAN (and will have to) deal with them.  However, should even a very small percentage of the world's nuclear weapons (think India and Pakistan) detonate all bets are off.  We will be helpless to deal with such huge consequences.

If anyone thinks current air pollution problems, ozone depletion, and climate change predictions are bad, just think about the massive (radioactive particulate) air pollution, major ozone depletion and astronomical climate change (think really cold temperatures) that would follow the scenario that scientists have been studying.  Scientific studies over the past decade on the effects of limited nuclear war have demonstrated that even a limited nuclear exchange with 100 or less Hiroshima-sized weapons (and that's nothing compared to the size of the warheads in the U.S. and Russian arsenals) would cause unprecedented climate change.

We are talking major cold temperatures, a huge reduction in sunlight reaching the ground, and thanks to the really big hole it would create in the ozone layer most of us would be living in a giant unregulated tanning salon (extreme levels of UV radiation).  All this would cause massive agricultural failures and subsequent global famine.  Steven Starr has written extensively on this subject.  And just one more thing; the survivors would (thanks to all that radioactive fallout) suffer mutations that would produce harmful reproductive effects to subsequent generations.

Temperature changes due to limited nuclear war (Source: Steven Starr)

While I found Harrel's initial post a compelling read, it seems that many environmentalists did not! Harrel posted again on March 3rd (Nuclear Weapons and Climate Change: Part Two), saying that he had received a lot of "feedback" from environmentalists who don't have a problem with the studies, but they just don't think it's a problem that should be on their radar based on the low probability of a nuclear war ever happening.

Harrel does an excellent job of discussing probability and statistics, and the fact that no matter how small the probability of such an event is the catastrophic global consequences of nuclear war are so great that it is simply an unacceptable risk!!!  And how do we reduce such an unacceptable risk to zero???  Get rid of every nuclear weapon; an astronomical task indeed, but one we have to take on and continue until the job is done.

Harrel's post reminds me that the issue of nuclear weapons affects everyone and everything.  They ARE an environmental issue, and in a very real sense they are an even more inconvenient truth than global warming and its associated climate change.  If that is the case, perhaps we should all take them more seriously and work together to abolish them.

Peace,

Leonard

Click here to learn more about the consequences of nuclear war at Steven Starr's Website.