Pediatric Terrorism and Disaster Preparedness: A ... - PHE Home

chemical, and physical properties that would result in different health effects. Most of the
effects of the radiation from radioiodine are on the thyroid. Radioiodine is also one of the
few radioisotopes for which there is a targeted organ and specific method of prevention
and treatment, namely, administration of stable potassium iodide.
The Chernobyl nuclear power plant accident in 1986 provides the best documented
example of a massive radionuclide release in which large numbers of people across a
broad geographical area were exposed to radionuclides released into the atmosphere.
Chernobyl also most closely mimics the worst-case scenario of a successful terrorist
attack on a nuclear power plant. At Chernobyl, radioiodine was released from a graphite
and nuclear fuel fire that burned for 2 weeks after the initial core meltdown.
The medical effects on children from an environmental radioiodine release have been
extensively studied. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration did a comprehensive review
of the data relating radioiodine exposure to thyroid cancer risk after the Chernobyl
reactor accident in 1998. Hundreds of thousands of measurements were made from some
of the millions of people exposed in the most heavily contaminated regions of the former
Soviet Union: Belarus, Ukraine, and the Russian Federation.
Thyroid radiation exposures after Chernobyl were virtually all internal, either through
ingestion or inhalation of radioiodines. Starting 4 years after the accident, thyroid cancer
increases of 30- to 100-fold were observed (compared with pre-Chernobyl rates), with
estimated doses of