Hendrix College welcomes Dr. Ira Helfand of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) for a public lecture on Tuesday, March 3, at 11:10 a.m. in Lecture Hall C of the Mills Center for Social Sciences. Helfand is the recipient of the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize and co-president of the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW), the founding partner of ICAN, which is also the recipient of the 1985 Nobel Peace Prize.

Helfand speaks frequently about the perils of nuclear war, and how to prevent it (see his 2016 TEDx Talk). At Hendrix, he will frame this topic in light of current tensions with Iran and that country’s recent decision to pull out of significant elements of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), commonly called the Iran nuclear agreement.

In addition to his roles with ICAN and IPPNW, Helfand is also co-founder and past president of Physicians for Social Responsibility, IPPNW’s U.S. affiliate. He represented ICAN at the Oslo and Nayarit Conferences on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear War, and in September of 2015 he addressed a special session of the United Nations General Assembly. In May 2016, he led the session on the humanitarian consequences of nuclear war at the United Nations Open Ended Working Group meeting in Geneva that led to the successful negotiation of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in the summer of 2017, and on Sept. 20, 2017, he represented IPPNW at the signing ceremony for the Treaty. 

An internist and urgent care physician, Helfand has published studies on the medical consequences of nuclear war in the New England Journal of Medicine, the British Medical Journal, the Lancet and the World Medical Journal, and has lectured worldwide on the health effects of nuclear weapons.

Following his lecture, Helfand will attend a lunch with a small group of Hendrix College students who have expressed interest in learning more about his work.