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Markey Blasts Delays in Radiation Pill Distribution
U.S. Representative Edward Markey (D-Mass.) on Friday sent a letter to the White House criticizing delays in distribution of pills designed to protect people from radiation released during a terrorist attack or meltdown at a nuclear power plant, The Boston Herald reported (see GSN, Oct. 11, 2005). “We know that al-Qaeda has long considered nuclear power plants to be a potential target for future attacks,” Markey wrote. “It is now long past time for the final guidelines for potassium iodide stockpiling and distribution to be finished.” The 2002 Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response Act required the federal government to set up guidelines within one year for stockpiling and distribution of the pills to residents who live within 20 miles of any U.S. nuclear reactor. The guidelines have yet to be finished, according to Markey’s letter. “How many more lessons do we have to learn?” said Mary Lampert, spokeswoman for Pilgrim Watch, a watchdog group for the Pilgrim reactor in Massachusetts. “Hopefully, after (Hurricane) Katrina we would move in a proactive way on emergency planning and not wait until after the disaster has occurred and people have suffered.” The White House Management and Budget Office has been considering the guidelines since February of this year, Markey said. Potassium iodide helps prevent the thyroid from absorbing cancer-causing radioactive iodine, an expected component of material that would be released in a containment failure at a nuclear power plant (Dave Wedge, The Boston Herald, Aug. 19).
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