After Sept. 11, a new push for `nuclear pills '

By JOHN McELHENNY The Associated Press 10/23/01 3:45 PM

BOSTON (AP) -- Mary Lampert keeps a single potassium iodide pill in her medicine cabinet and another in the glove compartment of her car. When you live seven miles from a nuclear plant, she says, you can't be too safe.

Since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, people who live near nuclear plants have been buying the pills, which can help protect against cancer from radiation exposure.

"The terrorist doesn't make an announcement ahead of time, `We are going to attack the nuclear power plant,"' said Lampert, who lives in Duxbury, across Kingston Bay from the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station in Plymouth. "How long would it take the radioactive iodine to make it across to my house? In less than an hour, it's here."

Such fears are sending sales of potassium iodide through the roof at the Starke, Fla.-based American Civil Defense Association, which sells bottles of 200 tablets at $19.95 each. Before Sept. 11, sales topped 15 bottles in a good month. Since then, more than 500 bottles have been sold.

"That is our No. 1 item. We can't hardly keep it in," said spokesman Alex Coleman.

Iodine is one of about 200 radioactive elements created when the uranium atom splits, as occurs in a nuclear reactor.

Potassium iodide, if taken shortly after exposure to radiation, blocks the thyroid gland's intake of radioactive iodine, providing some protection against thyroid cancer and certain other diseases.

It proved effective in preventing thyroid cancer among adults and children in the path of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster.

However, officials in Massachusetts and other states worry that stockpiling the pills would make people less likely to evacuate in the event of a nuclear accident.

Also, potassium iodide will not protect people from radiation burns, radiation sickness and other forms of cancer in a nuclear accident.

"The public tends to look at potassium iodide as the magic bullet to protect them, but that's really not what it is," said Dr. Kenneth Miller, professor of radiology and director of health physics at the Penn State Hershey Medical Center in Pennsylvania. He lives 6½ miles from the Three Mile Island plant, the site in 1979 of the nation's worst commercial nuclear accident.

Still, momentum for distribution of the tiny white pills seems to be building.

In January, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission adopted a rule that encourages states to consider giving out potassium iodide as part of their nuclear accident strategy.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency, which has until now left it to states to decide whether to stockpile the pills, is holding a meeting this week with representatives of 16 other federal agencies to begin drafting a new potassium iodide policy.

Last month, a group of North Carolina elected officials in three counties asked the owner of the Shearon Harris nuclear plant to distribute the pills to neighbors.

And Tuesday, a bill to require Massachusetts health officials to make potassium iodide pills available to people living or working within 10 miles of nuclear plants passed a key legislative committee.

"All one would have to imagine is a plane crashing into that reactor," said state Rep. John Binienda, chairman of the Joint Energy Committee, which approved the bill. "You don't have to be a rocket scientist to know what the end result would be."

The bill would apply to more than 300,000 people who live or work near Pilgrim Station, Seabrook Station in Seabrook, N.H., or Vermont Yankee in Vernon, Vt., or are on Cape Cod, Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard, which are downwind from the Plymouth plant.

-- Anonymous, October 25, 2001

Answers

Where do I find CORRECT dosage information based on weight or age? I've seen three slightly different dosages mentioned for different ages of children.

How do you make sure before you take it that you aren't allergic to it? What do you do about that?

-- Anonymous, October 25, 2001

I dunno Helen. We've got some with the dosage info on the package and we'll go by that, if we ever have to. (Raleigh has a nuclear facility; maybe 30 miles away, not sure.) As for being allergic to it, well, it's kinda like salt, I think. If you're not allergic to salt, you should be okay. But I'm not a doctor. These days, I should think your doc wouldn't laugh at you for asking this stuff. And if he does? Get another doctor!

-- Anonymous, October 25, 2001

Here you go Helen, everything you ever wanted to know about it.

Link

-- Anonymous, October 26, 2001