Re: Potassium Iodide -Reply

[Franz Schoenhofer <schoenho@via.at>]

At 12:40 20.07.1998 -0500, you wrote:
>Hi Neil,
>
>There has been very little response.  I will forward you the most
>interesting exchange, in case you missed it.  Tom gave me a copy of a draft
>report for comment that was given out at the HP meeting - written by
>Congel, McKenna, Mohseni, and Willis.  It is available at
>http://www.nrc.gov/NR/NUREGS/SR1633/index.html    The change in direction,
>appears to be mainly due to the petition of Peter Crane, an NRC attorney
>who had thyroid cancer.  According to an NRC press release, the action is
>taken "in recognition of the European experience during and following the
>Chernobyl accident."  According to the CBS TV report early in July, KI
>saved the Polish population from developing numerous cases of thyroid
>cancer and prompted the change. 

I have problems to believe, that a TV report will have influence on such
decisions like distribution and adminstering of KI by a government. There
is not the slightest doubt, that use of KI in the vicinity of the Chernobyl
NPP and at places where there was highly active fallout the first days
after the accident would have prevented the development of thyroid cancer
in a large number of individuals and especially children - and I feel very
sorry for them. But to claim, that in Poland "KI saved ..... from
developing numerous cases of thyroid cancer" is simply not true. Poland was
not among the most affected countries in Europe, Bulgaria was according to
reports (I think one is from UNSCEAR or the IAEA) the most affected country
and Austria came second. In Austria no KI was distributed and not even the
worst anti-nuclear groups claim that there was an increase in thyroid
cancer. This does not imply that I condemn the Polish countermeasures,
because in the beginning nobody knew, how the situation would evolve and it
could have been very well, that the I-131 concentrations might have become
much higher. Nobody could forecast the emissions and obviously the weather
situation was not so well known as it has been postulated afterwards. While
I do not think that the Polish countermeasures were a priori wrong in the
light of the situation and the uncertainties I deny that they have
prevented thyroid cancers. In one RADSAFE contribution 35 000 cases of
adverse reactions have been mentioned. 


 This is what prompted me to bring up the
>issue on RADSFE - it seemed like triumph of politics over strong scientific
>evidence (again).  However, it is hard for me to see that the authors
>provide convincing evidence in the draft report based on the "European
>experience" - maybe it is because it is poorly written.


I am not so familiar with emergency plans in the vicinity of nuclear power
plants in Europe, but I would think that it is compulsary that people who
live in a certain distance from a NPP are provided in advance with KI
tablets for the case of an emergency. I know this for sure with respect to
Swedish nuclear power plants. About my opinion about the distribution of KI
tablets to everybody in a country I have written earlier.

Franz


Franz Schoenhofer
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Office:
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