The federal government’s own studies have repeatedly found that the potential contamination from KI is not limited to 10 or 20 miles. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission released a study in 1980, which predicted thyroid problems for hundreds of miles downwind of nuclear accident. Six years later, the disaster at Chernobyl proved the study was right. Instead of adopting these findings, the Commission paid for another study. The result was the same – the prediction of thousands of cases of thyroid damage for hundreds of miles from the incident. Again, the Commission chose to ignore these findings, concluding that despite the success of KI, stockpiling the drug would not be “worthwhile.”
Ever since the atomic bombings in Japan in 1945, health physicists have tried to understand and predict the consequences of a release of radiation over a wide area. These efforts took on increased emphasis in the 1950s and 60s as the introduction and growth of nuclear power raised the possibility that a very large number of people could be at risk in an accident.
In an attempt to address this question the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) commissioned a study by Sandia National Laboratories to explore the effects of the use of potassium iodide (KI) in a nuclear accident. Among the issues studied was the likely impact on people located at varying distances from a radiation release, and the probability of thyroid damage that would result.
The comprehensive study was released in 1980 as NUREG-1433. It explored four types of accidents, one of which (a “Core Melt with Atmospheric Release”) actually occurred six years later at Chernobyl. Though the authors of NUREG-1433 didn’t know it at the time, their forecast of widespread thyroid damage proved to be remarkably prescient.
To the dismay of the NRC, NUREG-1433 predicted serious thyroid problems for hundreds of miles downwind. As shown in Exhibit 1, it predicted a thyroid radiation dose of 1100 rem at 25 miles, 380 rem at 50 miles, and 100 rem at 100 miles. However, current NRC policy is to take protective action at 5 rem, meaning these levels would almost certainly cause thyroid damage among thousands, if not tens of thousands, of people.
Sadly, Chernobyl was to prove the accuracy of NUREG-1433. But rather than implement steps to protect the thyroid in case of an accident, the response of the NRC was to order another study.
This study was completed in 1992 and released as NUREG-6310. It was even more thorough than the earlier study, and like NUREG-1433, it predicted thousands of cases of thyroid damage for hundreds of miles downwind (Exhibit 2). Again, this proved accurate, with the NRC acknowledging in 1998 that the “vast majority” of Chernobyl’s cancers took place 50 to 350 km downwind (Exhibit 3).
Once again, however, the NRC did nothing. Despite finding that KI protected 97% of those lucky enough to get it, the agency decided that national KI stockpiling program would not be “worthwhile” and reached the baffling conclusion that “the apparently successful use of KI does not alter the validity of this guidance.”
It is a position that the facts do not support.
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