Posted on 10/28/2001 2:14:31 PM PST by N00dleN0gg1n
NH urges purchase The state has failed in its effort to motivate pharmacists to stock and promote a drug that protects the thyroid from the radioactive iodine released in a nuclear reactor disaster because the pill is readily available only to government agencies. Asked why they do not carry potassium iodide tablets, pharmacists leafed through drug catalogs to show that their wholesalers do not distribute the drug. They turned to their industry’s reference guide, “Drug Facts and Comparisons,” which lists Thyro-Block, a brand of potassium iodide recommended by the state, as a drug “available only to state and federal agencies.” Though the state and the manufacturer consider Thyro-Block an over-the-counter product, the reference book identifies it as a medication dispensed only when prescribed by a doctor. The state has done nothing to help pharmacists obtain KI, the chemical symbol for potassium iodide. Last week, despite the now important threat of sabotage that looms over the nation’s 103 nuclear power plants, state officials expressed little inclination to alter their hands-off policy on distribution of KI to New Hampshire residents who live near the Seabrook Station and Vermont Yankee nuclear power plants. There have been warnings going back to 1995 that terrorists had included nuclear power plants among their potential targets, based on testimony in the investigation of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. The plant in Seabrook has often been described as impervious to even the direct impact of an exploding airplane, but no such claims have been made for the 27-year-old, 540-megawatt Vermont Yankee plant at Vernon, across the Connecticut River from Hinsdale. The state maintains a supply of KI, but its policy, which dates back to 1990 (the year the 1,150-megawatt Seabrook Station began commercial generation) limits distribution of the tablets during an emergency to those who would have to work in or near the nuclear plant and to “institutionalized individuals” — the prisoners, nursing home residents and hospital patients in nearby communities. Two years ago, a KI Policy Study Group concluded in its report to Gov. Jeanne Shaheen that it would be “inappropriate and ineffective” for government agencies to distribute potassium iodide tablets to the public for use in a nuclear plant emergency. The report suggested residents — especially those living within the 10-mile emergency planning zones around the two nuclear plants — consult with their doctors about the potential benefit of taking the drug shortly before or after exposure to radioactive iodine, a waste product of nuclear fission. KI works by saturating the thyroid with iodine. With the gland filled, it cannot absorb the radioactive iodine. KI can protect only the thyroid and only against radioactive iodine. Evacuation is the only protection against other radioactive materials that might be released to the atmosphere in a reactor accident. The committee recommended the state “encourage retail pharmaceutical outlets in New Hampshire to maintain supplies of KI for purchase by members of the public.” “This course of action best reflects the New Hampshire character and preference for individual choice,” the report said. James C. Van Dongen, spokesman for the state Office of Emergency Management, emphasized his agency has no objection to residents maintaining a personal supply of KI tablets — as long as they understand that taking the pill in a nuclear disaster emergency is not a substitute for evacuation. “The only problem is that people haven’t physically been able to lay their hands on it. . . . We’ve been trying for two years to get pharmacies to stock this stuff as a public service. . . . The silence has been deafening,” Van Dongen said. He said on Thursday that the OEM was writing to two companies — Carter-Wallace and Anbex — that manufacture KI tablets, sending them the names of pharmacies in southern New Hampshire in the hope that the companies will “communicate to the pharmacists” their desire to supply the stores with the pills. Last February — seven months before terrorists in commercial jetliners loaded with fuel brought down New York’s World Trade Center towers and set the Pentagon ablaze — the state had written to the pharmacists, asking their help in “a voluntary effort to make potassium iodide available to New Hampshire residents.” The letter, signed by Frank G. Case, president of the state Board of Pharmacy, and Woodbury P. Fogg, the emergency management director, said: “KI is currently only available through mail or telephone order or from the manufacturers’ websites. We do not believe that we can truly say that KI is available to anyone who wants it unless it is offered for sale in local pharmacies. We are asking pharmacies, particularly in the southern half of the state, to stock KI on an experimental basis and do some in-store promotion to let customers know it is available.” Jennifer Hicks is director of the Seacoast Anti-Pollution League, the organization whose lobbying effort led to the review of the state’s KI policy in 1999. On Friday, after telephoning pharmacies throughout the Seacoast Region and calling the state pharmacy board’s office in Concord, Hicks concluded: “There has been miscommunication here, a real disconnect between the state and the pharmacists.” While state officials told Hicks there are no obstacles to pharmacies obtaining KI, she found the drug was not for sale in any of the stores she called. “They all say they aren’t able to get KI from their suppliers so they can’t stock KI on their shelves,” Hicks said. (One pharmacist, at the Shop ‘N Save in Hampton, told her he expected to have some of the tablets by the weekend.) She found herself “coaching” the pharmacists, suggesting they could order through the Internet Web sites and the toll-free numbers of the two manufacturers of KI that the state lists as suppliers in the emergency preparedness brochures distributed annually to residents in the towns near Seabrook Station and the Vermont Yankee plant. “I don’t think the pharmacies have been given any real incentive to do this,” Hicks said. “We’re depending on a for-profit system to take care of a public health need.” “I’ll bet if you went into a pharmacy and asked for Thyro-Block, they wouldn’t have a clue about what you want,” said Michael J. Smith, chairman of the executive committee of the New Hampshire Pharmacists Association. Smith could find no listings for potassium iodide products in the catalogs of the wholesalers who supply his pharmacy in Ossipee. His drug reference guidebook described Thyro-Block as a brand of prescription drug sold only to government agencies. That, he said, would be enough to stymie his efforts to obtain it. “You have to have some sort of incentive to stock something like this. . . . It’s not something that I can remember any customer asking for,” Smith said. Said Pharmacist Association President Donald M. Messina: “As far as we’re concerned, right now, there is no potassium iodide available. . . . I checked the catalogues and I cannot come up with any potassium iodide tablets.” Like his colleagues, Roger Hebert, owner of Rice’s Pharmacy in Nashua, could not “find a mechanism” for doing what the state had asked since KI tablets were not commercially available to him. But Hebert decided about three weeks ago that he had to be prepared. He bought a quantity of powdered potassium iodide, enough to fashion about 1,000 capsules. “I don’t have a use for it. I just got it in case it was ever necessary to have,” Hebert said. “I ordered it as a precaution, but I would not dispense it without checking with the state health department and, obviously, the patient would need a prescription.” On Friday, after getting a call from a reporter, Paul Gillis of Ken’s Pharmacy in Manchester did a little research to see how he would go about purchasing KI. His wholesalers don’t have the tablets, so he telephoned Wallace Pharmaceuticals, the New Jersey based company that makes Thyro-Block. He was told Thyro-Block is an over-the-counter product available on the Internet, but not sold to drug wholesalers. At the state pharmacy board’s office, Gillis learned of a second source for KI: Anbex, a Florida company that sells its product to the public on the Internet. “It is an incongruous situation, isn’t it?” Gillis said of a drug that is available to him as a private citizen, but not as a pharmacist. “I don’t feel as though Ken will put this in our stock,” Gillis said. “If a patient can buy it on the Internet, it would seem strange to put it in the pharmacy.” Obtaining KI on the Internet can also be strange — a challenging walk through the survivalist-oriented on-line market — definitely not as easy as buying a bottle of pills at the drug store. On Friday, at Anbex, which has an address in North Palm Harbor, Fla., no one returned a message left on the telephone answering machine. The company’s Web site offers 14 individually wrapped tablets of KI for $14, including shipping — which can take up to 30 days. The Web site for KI4U sells a variety of radiation detection meters as well as Thyro-Block and Iosat. As of Oct. 25, the distributor was discouraging orders for KI pills. “We are sold out and do not have a firm restocking date,” the Web site said. Thyro-Block was available in a four-person pack for $168, or a 100-pack case for $560 on the Web site of the Utah-based Nitro-Pak Preparedness Center, which boasts that it sells, “Products that bring real peace-of-mind and security.” Among the items sold on the Nitro site: child-size gas masks, “medic” surgical kits, “knuckle mender” first aid kits, “civil defense” sanitation toilets and “solar” showers. Just a month ago, Wallace Pharmaceuticals was purchased by MedPointe Inc. “This is a new company with new management and the company is reevaluating its distribution policy with respect to Thyro-Block, as it is reevaluating the distribution policy for all of its drugs,” a MedPointe spokesman said on Friday. He confirmed that Thyro-Block is currently sold only to government agencies and through independent Internet distributors. It is not available to drug wholesalers who service pharmacies. “So far, our sense has been that that has been adequate, but we are open to review and discussion,” the MedPointe spokesman said. In Concord, however, OEM spokesman Van Dongen said, “I haven’t heard of anybody asking that (the state’s KI policy) be reviewed or changed.” And Pharmacy Board President Frank Case, who did not realize when he wrote to pharmacists in February that Thyro-Block was a product not available through drug wholesalers, admitted he was “dumbfounded at this point,” but doesn’t plan to request any changes in state policy. “It may be an issue we will have to ponder again, but it is not an issue I would put on the board’s agenda,” he said.
of nuke pill, just in case
By ROGER TALBOT
Sunday News Staff
The great thing about KI tablets like Rad Block is that they're dirt cheap ($16.50 for 200 daily children's doses) and kept in un-opened bottles they last almost forever. So you can afford to stock up enough to take care of not just your family but friends and neighbors too.
Read the instructions that come with the pills carefully BEFORE there's an emergency.
Close enough man.
I was told that the best way to take powdered potassium iodide was to place the dosage on a small piece of bread (about 1 inch square), roll the bread into a pill, and then swallow it. It is supposed to taste quite bitter.
Also, keep in mind that us oldsters (over 40) have relatively little need for continuous KI treatment. It's the youngsters that are most vulnerable and need attention most.
Let's hope this discussion is only theoretical.
My concern is not so much over events happening here in the US. I just want to be prepared for when the vaporized remains of Iraq's bioweapons facilities come drifting around the planet.
But you do have to worry about the fallout.
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