Re: KI Pills

[Rich Oesterling <rgo@srv.net>]

At 15:19 2/18/96 -0600, gj_vargo@ccmail.pnl.gov wrote:
>          Regarding the use of KI pills, Mozley writes: "The risk of 
>          anaphylaxis to KI is low, but the consequences for any occurence 
>          are potentially catastrophic.  If you distribute pharmacological 
>          doses of KI to a large enough segment of the general population, 
>          you risk killing a few, and making even more pretty sick."
>          
>          This risk was considered in NCRP Report 55, Protection of the 
>          Thyroid Gland in the Event of Releases of Radioiodine."  Section 
>          4.5.  Using data provided from pharmaceutical manufacturers 
>          (therapeutic doses of iodide manufactured per year) and the 
>          incidents of adverse drug reaction rate reported to FDA, the NCRP 
>          estimates the rate of adverse reaction for 300-mg doses 
>          therapeutic doses of iodide to be 5E-7/y.  (Note:  the NCRP 
>          recommendation for protection of the thyroid gland is 130 mg/d.)  
>          This report also considers other possible complications from 
>          long-term use, or use by persons with special medical conditions. 
>          Most of these adverse effects are associated with dosage and 
>          frequency far in excess of the NCRP recommendation. 
>          
>          NCRP also makes one other important point concerning adverse 
>          effects:
>          
>          "Although there are many individual reports of complications of 
>          iodide administration in medical literature, these are anecdotal 
>          in that they list a number of cases with the complications, but 
>          do not give the number of patients taking iodides from which the 
>          cases demonstrating abnormalities are drawn." 
>          
>          
>          George J. Vargo
>          Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
>          
>          Usual disclaimers...