The Bush administration has found a way around a Congressional demand that Potassium Iodide tablets be distributed to people living within 10-20 miles of nuclear plants to protect them from thyroid cancer resulting from accidents or terrorist attacks on the facilities.
(Such pills are already passed out within a 10 mile radius.)
Bush's Science Advisor John Marburger has announced that those areas will be evacuated in the event of a problem. (Yeah, like that worked so well in New Orleans.) Afterwards the residents in the designated areas could be offered non contaminated food apparently.
That would in his mind be superior to distributing the potassium iodide pills for preventing thyroid cancer which would fulfill a caveat in the Congressional demand.
(But only if the evacuation is rapid and efficient, something FEMA doesn't seem to be able to promise.)
But the real reason for not distributing Potassium Iodide to a wider area is to keep people from wondering if they are safe living near a nuclear installation according to a USA Today report.
Why does this all sound like 2003 when the Bush administration took the funds for improving New Orleans' Levees from the Army Corps of Engineers to use for the War on Iraq?
About.com has this on Potassium Iodide from FDA sources:
The FDA has provided guidance previously on the use of KI as a thyroid blocking agent. In the Federal Register of December 15, 1978, FDA announced its conclusion that KI is a safe and effective means by which to block uptake of radioiodines by the thyroid gland in a radiation emergency under certain specified conditions of use.
The conditions of use means one tablet daily while needed.
A report at KSBY San Luis Obispo (near California's Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant), had a number of complaints from local residents about this decision, but they disappeared the report within 48 hours. Do you suppose they got a call from the Press Secretary's office as other news sources have reported receiving?
And don't you love how even getting to this took 5 years?
tags: potassium iodide nuclear regulatory commission nrc nuclear power plants thyroid cancer bush administration katrina new orleans
links: digg this del.icio.us technorati reddit