“The Growing Danger of Nuclear War: What Students Can Do To Prevent It”

The nuclear disarmament activist Dr. Ira Helfand will be visiting Austin in March and will be speaking at two events at UT. Dr. Helfand is a member of the International Steering Group of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), which received the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize, and Past President of the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, which received the 1985 Nobel Peace Prize. He is also co-founder and Past President of Physicians for Social Responsibility, IPPNW’s U.S. affiliate, and a member of the Steering Committee of the Back from the Brink campaign. In 2023 he received the Gandhi King Ikeda Award from the Martin Luther King Jr. International Chapel at Morehouse College.  He has published in the New England Journal of Medicine, the Lancet, the British Medical Journal, and the World Medical Journal on the medical consequences of nuclear war and chaired the session on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons at the UN Open-Ended Working Group in 2016 that led to the negotiation of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.

At this event, he will share his perspective as a longtime activist and member of the medical community who has worked to raise awareness about the threat of nuclear war.