Viewpoint: Treatment not Trident

On 22 September 2018, health professionals from all over the country, among them many GPs, joined thousands of people at Faslane base on the Clyde to protest about Trident and make the point that the resources being squandered on nuclear weapons are resources desperately needed by health and social services, and to combat climate change. ‘Treatment not Trident.’

As the General Medical Council states, the duty of a doctor is to ‘Protect and promote the health of patients and the public’ ¹ and such are the potentially catastrophic health effects of nuclear weapons that we have a duty to ensure that they are never used, either intentionally or by accident. And the only way to do this is to get rid of them, to be leaders in international nuclear disarmament.

Disarmament is inextricably intertwined with …