"Radiation is probably the most important subject in the world today," Dr. Helen Caldicott, an Australian pediatrician and opponent of nuclear power, told a group of about 100 people in Science Center C last night.

Caldicott, who now lives in the United States, emphasized the inability of technology to destroy, safely and adequately, dangerous nuclear wastes. The man-made element plutonium is a particular danger since it is both a carcinogen and a key component in nuclear weapons. She said in her speech, sponsored by Natural Sciences 150, "The Biology of Cancer."

"It is a mere miracle that we're still here." Caldicott said, adding "We are right now the curators of life on earth because we can destroy the world with nuclear war."

Death For Sale

U.S. Companies are presently selling nuclear reactors to third world countries, and "General Electric has made these things and they have to make a profit, so they sell them to third-world countries," she said.

"The more third-world countries that get nuclear power, the more chance there is of nuclear war," she concluded.

After describing the probable effects of radiation on the world after a nuclear war, Caldicott warned that "the scenario would be left to the hands of human mutants."

"We are spending money on death, we have a death economy," she added.