University researchers urge precautionary distribution of KI pills in Princeton area

Should the University pay $200 a year to avoid a 1-in-3,000 chance of 46 students getting cancer? It might sound like a thought experiment, but it is a real dilemma, according to researchers in the Wilson School.

The issue grew out of a task force on nuclear power plant terrorism, which was organized last spring as part of WWS 304: Science, Technology and Public Policy. A group of five students worked with University scientists Frank von Hippel, Zia Mian and Laura Kahn GS '02 to assess the risks of an accidental or deliberately-caused meltdown.

One of these risks was the chance that residents near the reactor might be exposed to radioactive iodine in the event of a meltdown, von Hippel said.

Radioactive iodine is a byproduct of the fission process in nuclear power plants. It has a half-life of eight days, which means that, even if released into the environment, it would only last a few weeks.

But the radioactive iodine is highly toxic to humans, Kahn said. If inhaled or ingested, it tends to accumulate in the thyroid gland, where it increases the risk of thyroid cancer. The cancer risk that results from exposure is greatest for children and declines with age, she said. Thyroid cancer is usually survivable, but extremely unpleasant, she said.

"You have to have surgery [to remove the thyroid]." Kahn said. "You have to take thyroid hormone for the rest of your life."

The radiation-related risk of thyroid cancer can be avoided by taking a 10-cent potassium iodide (KI) pill before exposure, the researchers said. The pill lasts 24 hours, saturating the thyroid with regular iodine so that there is no room for the radioactive kind to accumulate, they said.

There are seven nuclear power plants that could send radioactive debris into the sky over Princeton if they were to melt down, the researchers said.

Princeton is not within a 10-mile radius of any reactor, the area that is at greatest risk in the event of a meltdown. State health authorities are giving free KI pills to residents in these high-risk areas.

But the Wilson School report urged authorities to expand the area in which free KI pills are distributed. The report concluded the pills should be available to everyone within a 50-mile radius of any plant, an area that includes Princeton.

Any given reactor is likely to melt down by accident once in 10,000 years of active use, von Hippel said. This does not include the risk of nuclear terrorism.

Factoring in the significant possibility of a terrorist attack, the seven reactors near Princeton, and the wind conditions that would be needed to blow radioactive material to campus, there is "a roughly 1-in-3,000 chance, per year, of 50 students getting thyroid cancer" as the result of a meltdown, von Hippel said.

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But even if there is a meltdown at one of these seven reactors, the reactor's containment mechanisms would have to fail, and the wind would have to be blowing just the right way in order for the radioactive materials to travel 30 miles or more to campus.

This makes it unlikely that radioactive material will fall over Princeton, even if a meltdown does occur nearby.

The cost of keeping fresh pills on hand for the whole student body, averaged out over time, would be about $200 a year, von Hippel said. In the final analysis "it's not obvious" whether the risk is large enough to justify the cost of a University stockpile.

"If you really start to get into this cost-benefit analysis, it's not a slam dunk," von Hippel said. "It's a discretionary matter."

For now, the University does not to keep a stockpile of the pills, said Lauren Robinson-Brown '85, communications director.

Mian said it might be appropriate to revisit the issue.

"We'd certainly like to talk to them about this and suggest to them that they should think about this perhaps more seriously than they have," he said.