Nuke pills not ready despite '03 deadline (USA Today)

[highplainsdem]

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2005-10-11-nuke-pills_x.htm?csp=14




Posted 10/11/2005 1:01 AM Updated 10/11/2005 1:04 AM

Nuke pills not ready despite '03 deadline
By Mimi Hall, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — Despite an order from Congress, the Bush administration has not given millions of people living within 20 miles of nuclear power plants access to pills that could help protect them if they are exposed to radiation.

It will be early 2006, at the earliest, before potassium iodide pills are made available to those people. Congress had ordered that the pills, which help prevent thyroid cancer, be stockpiled by mid-2003.

Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., said it's "outrageous" that the administration hasn't made the pills more widely available.

"Nuclear power plants are at the top of the al-Qaeda target list," he said. "Potassium iodide is an inexpensive way to protect infants and children."


One more shining example of BushCo's "concern" for the health and safety of US citizens.

[jayfish]

1. They Just Haven't Found The Right Company...

(see Halliburton, Enron, etc.) to bilk the job. Maybe it's better that this Doesn't get done under BushCo. Also puts a light to how seriously really see the threat. As in it doesn't exist.

Jay

[superconnected]

12. Carlyle bought into it.

They own over 40% of one of the only companies making them. I posted an article on it here, last week.

I put the link, below, but here it is again:

http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=11243

[cosmik debris]

2. mis-information

Potassium iodide does NOT protect against radiation! It prevents absorption of radioactive Iodine by the thyroid. But radioactive iodine is a minor problem for nuclear accidents. The big problems such as strontium and uranium and its daughters can not be cured with a pill. There are only three ways to protect yourself. Time(don't stay around very long) distance(get the hell outta there) and shielding (surround yourself with lead). The iodine story is red herring.

[mike_c]

7. yep-- hot iodine is only one of a cocktail of isotopes...

...that would be released by a reactor breach.

[cosmik debris]

11. Iodine is a beta emitter

The gamma emitters will kill you a long time before you can get cancer from the betas.

[mike_c]

13. true, but the total death toll from eventual cancers is likely...

...to greatly exceed the short-term death rate from radiation sickness. And iodine IS absorbed and sequestered in the thyroid. But I think your initial response was spot on-- it's delusional to think that taking a pill will protect anyone from long term cancer in the event of a reactor breach. Potassium iodide pills might produce a statistically significant long term decline in cancer mortality, but one which would be easily offset by any complacency that administering the pill might produce.

[struggle4progress]

26. Internal beta sources can be a serious problem. eom

[HereSince1628]

10. I don't think it is entirely a red-herring, read about Chernobyls aftermat

And also the experiences of people living in the Columbia River basin downstream of Hanford's nuclear plant. Where thyroid cancers were common results from radioactive exposure.

You are right about time, degree of exposure and such.

But, radioactive isotopes incorportated into tissue effectively increase the persons time of exposure to those isotopes. You can't run away or shield yourself form something that's inside your own body.

Extra non-radioactive minerals consumed as supplements can compete with their radioactive counterparts and reduce the incorporation of radioactive isotopes.

It might not be great protection, but it is protection.

[cosmik debris]

14. Like sending snake bite kits to New Orleans

Yes there were plenty of snakes, but it is a distraction from the real problems.

If your thyroid is saturated with Iodine, (from any source)the radionuclide will not be absorbed. Cancer will not occur. Iodized salt can be used to saturate your thyroid. We do not need the government to help us eat salt.

In most nuclear accidents the gamma emitters will toast your digestive system and your bone marrow long before any cancer can kill you. That's what happened to most of the Hanford victims as well as the Chernobyl victims.

Gamma emitters are the real problem, Cesium, Strontium, and Uranium. There is no pill that will protect you from Gamma radiation.

[HereSince1628]

19. My skeleton is a marker of atmospheric testing

of atomic bombs. All the isotopes that behave chemically like natural elements in my boney matrix (such as those that have calcium-like chemistry) are in my bones until radioactive decay or mass-action dynamics remove them.

Competitive uptake is a mechanism to reduce such incorporation and its associated risks, even if you minimize its utility.

[cosmik debris]

20. If you eat bananas

your bones are radioactive. They may also have strontium or other chemicals that mimic calcium. Only destructive analysis can determine the ratio of K (or Sr) to Ca. In any event, you risk of cancer is still stochastic, not deterministic.

Competitive uptake is effective. That is not deniable, but I am reminded of the run on Cipro after anthrax was found in the mail. A lot of people wanted it, but only a few needed it. Remember iodine can kill you in doses larger than those recommended by the FDA. 130mg for adults, 65mg for children under 1 yr.

[HereSince1628]

21. I think we agree on the science

[cosmik debris]

23. I just get pissed off

at the paranoia over radiation. There is plenty to worry about without worrying about the little stuff. I-131 is little stuff compared to the gamma emitters. Like snake bite kits in a hurricane.

[superconnected]

16. yeah, but there will still be a run on the iodine.

Good to know that information though.

[cosmik debris]

17. Just to be fair

The FDA recommends 130mg/day in emergencies, but if you are still there after one day, you will probably die from stupidity before the Iodine can kill you.

[Delphinus]

3. Their concern ends at their pocketbook.

And some are convinced the boy king is doing everything he can, and making all the right moves, to deal with the avian bird flu. Actions speak louder than words.

[lutefisk]

4. Our government has become a "front" for a criminal enterprise.

Sometimes it seems the main purpose of the Bush administration controlled federal government is a sort of reverse money laundering operation- taking honest tax dollars and government revenues and redistributing that money to cronies and various companies and individuals. Doing old government paradigm things, such as protecting the public, aren't part of the scam. Sorry.

[CottonBear]

5. My family received potassium iodide pills at our lake house address

when the Sequatchie Nuclear Power PLant on Lake Chickmaugua was nearing completion in the early 1970s. A package was left in a plastic bag on the door of every house within a certain radius of the plant. It's simply not that hard to do. You send someone to every residence in the area and they leave a package of pills along with an instruction letter at the door to each domicile. Between census maps and current property maps, virtually every residence, including guest apartments and guest houses, can be found.

I worked on the 2000 Census. I am employed in the field of land planning so I am very familiar with maps. I have done numerous door-to-door surveys for CDBG grant purposes. They should hire me to run this program. I could do a damn good job.


I used to water ski past the plant which is on an island is the huge Tennessee TVA lake. The lake was formed by damming the Tennessee River. I hope I'm not too radioactive. I didn't think about it too much at the time. :(

[LeftyMom]

6. As kids we used to go fishing and swimming at Rancho Seco lake

which is the emergency cooling pond for the long-defunct Rancho seco nuke plant.

http://www.smud.org/about/recreation/rancho.html

:scared:

[CottonBear]

8. Oh my. That is really, really scary.

:scared: I hope y'all are OK.

[LeftyMom]

9. The whole family's the picture of health

(well, Dad's getting kinda chunky 'round the middle.) The place was decomissioned at this point.

[Massacure]

25. Rancho Seco is a pressurized water reactor,

They have three loops, a pressurized loop that transfers heat via a heat exchanger to a secondary loop which flashes to steam, and then a third loop cools the steam after it goes through the turbine.

The cooling (third) loop never enters the reactor.

edit: Here is a good basic graphic to show the loops:
http://www.nucleartourist.com/type/pwr.htm

[superconnected]

15. Carlyle owns a good part of one of the only companies making those pills

http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=11243

"That's significant because potassium iodide can help protect against thyroid cancer in the event of exposure to large amounts of radiation -- from a small, easily transported nuclear weapon, say, or a terrorist attack on a nuclear power plant.

And that's significant because, in June 2002, President Bush signed into law the Public Health Security and Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response Act. It requires state and local officials to "provide adequate protection" by distributing potassium iodide to all public facilities within a few miles of a nuclear power plant.

And that, in turn, is significant because if you're one of just a handful of authorized makers of potassium iodide, you're in a position to profit handsomely if the worst-case scenario should actually come to pass.

The Carlyle Group and another investment firm, the Cypress Group, spent more than $400 million to acquire a controlling stake in MedPointe in May 2001. Carlyle alone owns about 42 percent of the firm.
"

-----------

My only thoughts on this are.. Syria and Pakistan.

[sakabatou]

18. Bush don't care about nobody.

[truthisfreedom]

22. they should have gone with potassium iodate. you can't get kids to take

potassium iodide... it's horrifyingly bitter.

[Orsino]

24. It's outrageous that Markey is two years late...

...in complaining. Perhaps his own "concern" is not a top priority, either.

With the Congress busy posturing on steroids and gay marriage, no real work is getting done. There's blame enough for both sides of the aisle.

They are not of us.