The American Academy of Pediatrics has recommended that homes, schools and child-care centers near nuclear power plants maintain stockpiles of potassium iodide pills to protect children from excessive radiation exposure, the Associated Press reported today (see GSN, Dec. 4, 2002).

In addition to keeping the pills on hand, families, schools and child-care centers within 10 miles of nuclear power plants should also develop distribution plans in the event of a disaster, the academy said.  “It may be prudent to consider stockpiling potassium iodide within a larger radius because of more distant wind-borne fallout, as occurred after Chernobyl,” it said.

Potassium iodide can prevent thyroid cancer by blocking the body’s absorption of excess radiation, according to AP.  Children are more vulnerable to radiation because they are closer to the ground where fallout settles and because their bodies absorb and metabolize substances differently, the academy said.

The new recommendations were prompted by biological terrorism concerns and the current war in Iraq, said Sophie Balk, a pediatrician who headed the academy committee that created the recommendations (Associated Press/USA Today, April 8).

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