Residents Near Nuke Plants Will Continue to Get Iodide Pills

related: Startling Revelations about Three Mile Island Disaster Raise Doubts Over Nuke Safety

April 14, 2009
By Ben Leach
Press of Atlantic City (NJ)

Just as the Nuclear Regulatory Commission approved the relicensing of the nation's oldest continuously operating nuclear plant, the same agency announced plans to continue to provide pills to residents to protect them against radiation in the event of a nuclear accident.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission, or NRC, recently announced that it will continue to provide towns within 10 miles of nuclear reactors with potassium iodide pills. The pills protect the thyroid gland by flooding it with non-radioactive iodide, keeping the radioactive isotope of iodine out of the gland.

Previously, the NRC said that it would only fund the initial replenishment of pills that was supplied to states in 2007. The federal agency now plans to supply states with the pills for the foreseeable future in six-year intervals beginning around 2013.

Residents living within 10 miles of the Oyster Creek Generating Station in Lacey Township have access to a stockpile of the pills.

"Off and on people call in because their pills have expired," said Mukesh Roy, a health planner with the Ocean County Department of Health. The health department estimates that 35,000 pills were distributed in 2007 when most of their initial supply was set to expire. Another 7,000 pills were given out in 2008.

The potassium iodide pills are to be taken only in the event of a meltdown or if radioactive material finds its way off-site. The shelf life of the pills is only about seven years, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, so people living near a reactor need to have unexpired pills handy.

Potassium iodide was first used after the Chernobyl nuclear accident in 1986. After conducting tests, the NRC found that thyroid cancer was lower in people who took the pills when directed.

Since the Chernobyl plant was designed without the barriers mandated for U.S. plants, the radius of people at risk for iodine radiation extended much farther than it would for plants in the United States, according to Neil Sheehan, a spokesman for the NRC.

While taking the pill is important for public health and safety, Sheehan said that it is a part of a larger emergency plan the NRC has for meltdowns and other potential nuclear accidents.

http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/184/story/457894.html