Colleagues have just published major new work on Fallout from nuclear weapons tested in New Mexico and Nevada, above ground, between 1945 and 1962…new insights are available from their work. AND Mary Olson gives a rundown of health consequences from bathing the continent in highly radioactive fission products like cesium and iodine… and at the same time, summons some hope.

[Nov 22, 2022] I have an error I must own. My mistake does not invalidate any of the data presented on the disproportionate impact of ionizing radiation to girls and women. My mistake is in data communication and visualization: I combined two things that do not belong together, resulting in an error. I must both disclose and sincerely apologize. I will do my best to make corrections and repairs. {Read more]

Teaching about radiation! Cindy Folkers of Beyond Nuclear and Mary Olson of Gender and Radiation Impact Project have more than 50 combined years of experience working with communities impacted by ionizing radiation. Now we are ready to teach—not train—people to think about this topic, ask clearer questions and better understand presentations, research papers and government documents. Classes are short, online and there is a scholarship fund.

This organizational statement gives background to understand that a radiological emergency is a bigger emergency for girls and women, compared to boys and men…Gender and Radiation Impact Project calls on all combatants to cease violence near any nuclear power site.

Report from Austria—the Vienna Conference 2022–the day before the first meeting of Parties to the Treaty on The Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW)—I was there and spoke at the conference. The International Committee of the Red Cross provided radiation screening on the way into the event—a reminder…

Question: Do you believe in collective healing? If you don’t immediately say “YES!” I understand. I invite you to gently suspend your disbelief long enough to read on…

HOPE is often externalized and trivialized, made conditional and transactional. A birthright as much as is LOVE…this is an invitation as 2021 comes to a close to find your foundations…and, BE HOPE.

I was born in 1958—full-on Cold War… my family lived upwind of the Nevada nuclear weapons test site in California and even there air quality was the reason my parents gave when they moved our family back to the Midwest… I was in kindergarten in a tiny town in Illinois during the Cuban Missile Crisis, when a bomb drill caused me to become aware of nuclear annihilation at that age. I opted out: that very night I got sick and stayed chronically ill dropping out of kindergarten and was mostly homeschooled for the next 12 years.