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White House May Stop Plan For Anti-Radiation Pills
WASHINGTON - The White House may scrap a plan that would give anti-radiation pills to millions of people, five years after Congress ordered that the tablets be made available to anyone living within 20 miles of a nuclear reactor.
Congress issued the order based on concerns that terrorists could attack a nuclear plant. The government already provided free pills to the 4.7 million people living within 10 miles of a plant, but Congress ordered wider distribution to cover 21.9 million people in 33 states.
Although the White House at the time called potassium iodide pills crucial to preventing thyroid cancer in cases of radiation exposure, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) argues against wider distribution of the drug. According to the NRC, the pills may not be the most effective way to prevent cancer and could undermine confidence in U.S. nuclear plants.
The once-a-day pills protect the thyroid against inhaled or ingested radioactive iodine by saturating it with harmless potassium iodide.
The White House is considering whether to invoke a legal loophole allowing the government to scrap the distribution requirement if there is a better way to prevent thyroid cancer. In July, President Bush instructed his science adviser to make that determination. FIND MORE STORIES IN: House | Congress | Health and Human Services | Nuclear Regulatory Commission
Science Adviser John Marburger says he'll decide within a month.
Marburger says he'll consider whether other measures, such as evacuation and distribution of uncontaminated food, would be more effective. Any plan to protect people from developing thyroid cancer after radiation exposure "shouldn't be a symbolic effort," he said.
Patricia Milligan, the NRC's senior adviser for preparedness, says the commission opposes broad distribution of the pills because the best way to eliminate risk is to make sure people don't eat contaminated food.
She also says the NRC is concerned about undermining the reputation of the nuclear industry. "It's always a concern that if you expand the distribution (of the pills), you don't have confidence in the plants," she says. "We have studies that show the safety of our plants."
In July, President Bush stripped the Health and Human Services Department of responsibility for the program and turned it over to the NRC.
Thyroid cancer advocates and some lawmakers are furious.
Potassium iodide "is a simple, cheap, proven drug that can save countless lives, especially children, in the event of a nuclear release," Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., said. Without it, "millions of Americans are being left needlessly at risk."
According to the American Thyroid Association, there is no more effective preventive measure than potassium iodide, which is approved by the Food and Drug Administration.
Peter Crane, a former lawyer with the NRC and thyroid cancer advocate, says the administration stalled for five years under pressure from the NRC, which has "sabotaged (the law) from the get-go."
In preparing to distribute the pills, "HHS (the Health and Human Services department) and its health experts tried to do the right thing by America's children and were punished by having the issue taken away and given to the NRC," Crane says. "If you entrust our kids' health to nuclear engineers instead of doctors ... you are inviting disaster."
Marburger, a physicist who recently took potassium iodide to protect his thyroid from treatments for non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, says the issue is "more complicated than I expected it to be."
© 2007 USA Today
9 Comments so far
Show AllI gave three members of my family potassium iodide tablets after the Chernobyl accident. These set off a hyperthyroid crisis on our female that required thyroid gland ablation and removal using radioactive iodine tablets.
So the NRC is "concerned about undermining the reputation of the nuclear industry" by obeying a law that potassium iodide tablets must be available in case of a radioactive release? They sound like a PR firm for the nuclear power industry! Instead, they should be vigilant watchdogs, concerned about terrorists attacking our nuke plants, or another meltdown. (Yes, Three Mile Island DID have a partial core meltdown.)
ezeflyer: Your info re a "hyperthyroid crisis" set off by potassium iodide is shocking. Ending the use of nuclear power is a goal I've been working towards for years, in my own small way, and that includes staying informed on all the issues including this one. I have never run across a situation like yours. Was it a one-in-a-million thing, or do you know of other cases?
kinda like when Bush couldn't stop worrying about the Chicken Flu, ordered a vaccine but then canceled the order when just enough was made to cover a core group...government, police, military, health workers. Sounds like compassionate conservatism to me.
I read in the past that a trace of liquid iodine in your food would fill the void that radioactive iodine would otherwise fill in your thyroid.
Almost seems like something nu-cu-lar is going to happen, eh? and they want people to die.
Adele, I haven't researched that aspect. A thyroid crisis is not something one does not want to remember. The person becomes bipolar and prone to heart attack. It affects the entire family.
Implication: Nuclear Power is not safe. NP plants WILL leak. NP owners prefer government to treat symptoms rather than treat the cause.
Implication 2: Government is happy to treat symptoms on behalf of NP whilst allowing status quo.
Correction: A thyroid crisis is something that one does not want to remember.
Anyway, I researched it a bit today, but so far I haven't found any evidence in the lit. that taking iodine tablets can precipitate a thyroid storm. Excess thyroid hormone can. Is it possible that excess thyroid hormone is produced as a response to high iodine levels just as insulin is produced as a response to sugar levels? Regardless, it is better to prevent a thyroid crisis than to have to remedy it. Nukes are the recurring nightmare of neoplastic disease.
I took a look through PubMed and I have seen articles referring to iodine-induced thyrotoxicosis. One thing about iodine is that it usually needs to be in active form to be taken up by the thyroid. Indeed, stable iodide is often used to blockade the thyroid (ameliorating thyrotoxicosis) because it prevents the formation of thyroid hormone. It is possible that the KI (potassium iodide) pills that you had were defective, and also possible that there is no way to fully eliminate the active iodine atoms from a preparation of KI.
Some people are very sensitive to iodine. I read an abstract of a case report where someone had thyrotoxicosis after the skin was treated with povidone-iodine (Betadine). Obviously, that doesn't happen often, because Betadine is a very popular surgical dressing.
thank you M. Duncan.
Thankyou Peter Crane for this statement, "If you entrust our kids' health to nuclear engineers instead of doctors … you are inviting disaster."
I am in complete agreement, well almost, since there are thousands of un-necessary deaths caused by poor quality physicians in even just the US each year. An odd thing is that just like the nuclear industry has a proven track record of hiding dangerous errors, so too does the 'doctors club' try to prevent the public from discovering physicians aren't all the capable geniuses many in society make them out to be.
A good example combining both groups is the widely known MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) test given in hospitals throughout the world. Very few people now realize the original name was NMRI, which is 'Nuclear' Magnetic Resonance Imaging. They dropped the 'Nuclear' in the title because they thought people would fear the consequences of being subjected to a test that involved radiation, but the test didn't change, only the obfuscating name.
The reason I know this is my two brothers installed & repaired medical electronic equipment, worldwide, for a combined total of over thirty years, including x-ray, MRI, CT-Scan (catscan), simulators, and ultra-sound.
I think it is remiss of the author of this article to fail to point out potassium iodide tablets will only go so far in helping to prevent ill effects from radiation poisoning. With a strong enough dose, or long enough exposure, there is little that can be done except make the person comfortable in their remaining time. In the event of a nuclear attack, explosion in a nuclear facility, or even very high dosage, it is often the ones killed immediately who are the fortunate.
With this in mind, and with concern for family, friends, & fellow citizens, my brothers took their experience in this field to invent a radiation detector that fits on your keychain. In the event of a radiation emmitting disaster we wll now know which way to go (and how long we have) to escape to a safer location. I think I trust this device more than just dropping a few pills, but I'll probably do that also IF they are available WHEN such an event occurs. www.nukalert.com if you are interested.