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U.S. Antiradiation Pill Stockpile Plan Stalls
The Bush administration has not yet implemented a plan to stockpile antiradiation pills in case of sabotage at a nuclear power plant, the New York Times reported Saturday (see GSN, Dec. 5, 2003). A congressionally mandated study by the National Academy of Sciences concluded in December 2003 that states and municipalities should determine how and where to stock and distribute potassium iodide and that the federal government should to maintain a potassium iodide stockpile and fund local efforts. The academy called on the Bush administration to develop stockpiling guidelines for state and local officials; but that has yet to occur, according to the Times. President George W. Bush in his 2004 State of the Union address warned of the possibility that terrorists could attack a nuclear reactor, noting that U.S. forces in Afghanistan had found plans for U.S. power plants, the Times reported. The Health and Human Services Department has prepared guidelines on potassium iodide that are “in the process of final clearance and will be shared with state and local stakeholders for comment in the near future,” a Bush administration official said Friday. The study said potassium iodide “should be available to everyone at risk of significant health consequences from accumulation of radioiodine in the thyroid in the event of a radiological incident.” Each exposed individual might need 10 or 15 days’ worth of the drug, said Alan Morris, president of Anbex, the government’s sole supplier of the pills. “It’s hard to understand their motivation for not taking this relatively easy, relatively inexpensive, highly effective approach,” Morris said. “It was the most important thing the Soviets did after Chernobyl.” The National Academy study, however, said a single day’s dose would suffice because people would be evacuated from the area of any radiological incident, according to the Times. The report says that while the pills would be useful in the case of a nuclear weapon explosion, they would not be a top priority in the latter case. The pills would also not be useful in the event of a “dirty bomb” attack, experts have said (Matthew Wald, New York Times, Oct. 23).
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