Uranium mining and health.

The energy needs of our society are becoming a challenge. One energy source, nuclear power, is entirely dependent on uranium. Increasingly, physicians are opposing the mining of uranium. In the 1980s, family physician Dr Robert Woollard led a task force that resulted in a provincial moratorium on uranium mining in British Columbia.1 In autumn 2009 in Sept-Îles, Que, more than 20 physicians threatened to leave if a uranium mine was opened 13 km upstream from the community in which they practised.2 In 2010, the International Physicians for Prevention of Nuclear War passed a motion opposing the mining of uranium.3 Why would physicians oppose uranium mining?