NRC to distribute 9 million potassium iodide tablets around U.S. nuclear plants

[ensho]

http://www.gsnmagazine.com/cms/features/news-analysis/1757.html


The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is planning to distribute approximately nine million potassium iodide tablets to state and local governments and Native-American tribes. The tablets will be stockpiled for populations living within a “10-mile emergency planning zone” surrounding commercial nuclear power plants across the country.

Revised rules issued by the NRC in 2001 require that state, local and tribal governments “consider including potassium iodide (KI) as a protective measure for the general public to supplement sheltering and evacuation in the unlikely event of a severe nuclear power plant accident,” according to a solicitation released by the NRC earlier this month.

“Potassium iodide is a salt, similar to table salt,” explains the NRC’s Web site. “It is routinely added to table salt to make it ‘iodized.’ Potassium iodide, if taken within the appropriate time and at the appropriate dosage, blocks the thyroid gland's uptake of radioactive iodine and thus reduces the risk of thyroid cancers and other diseases that might otherwise be caused by thyroid uptake of radioactive iodine that could be dispersed in a severe reactor accident.”

When the NRC originally considered this policy, it had planned to distribute adult-sized tablets with a dosage of 130 mg, but since the Food and Drug Administration has approved a pediatric dose of 65 mg, the NRC has decided to distribute that smaller tablet. “Each tablet shall be scored-in to enable the user to break the tablet into at least two pieces,” says the solicitation, and each tablet will be individually wrapped in blister packaging.
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finally

[MissMarple]

1. How reassuring about the safety of nuclear power plants.

[dixiegrrrrl]

2. Wait...there's more...

"The NRC solicitation listed more than 30 possible locations across the country that might receive distributions of the KI tablets. Delivery will be required within three months of contract award, and the tablets must have a shelf life of at least five years and nine months thereafter, says the solicitation.

Additional information is available from Sheila Bumpass, of the NRC’s contracts division, at 301-492-3484. "

Setting aside for the moment the unfortunate name of Sheila, I have questions.

WHO is getting the contract?
Where will these pills be manufactured? China? ( oh, sooo reassuring)
What is the time frame of taking them so they will be effective?
And what assurances do we have any nuclear plant will actually inform citizens of an accident requiring the use of the tablets?
Last, if the adult dose is 130 mg, why are the handing out 65mg doses?

[WhiteTara]

4. the are 130 scored so they can be given

to children who can only use 65mg.

as for the rest of the questions...fire away! I wouldn't mind answers to those either.

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

3. After 9/11, our school district asked permission to dispense potassium iodide to the children. We're

15 minutes from a nuke plant that sits on the Hudson River in NY. The planes that flew down from Boston on 9/11 passed the plant.