White House May Halt Anti-Radiation Pills

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That seems to be the message behind USA Today's report that the Bush administration may scrap a plan to give anti-radiation pills to millions of people, five years after Congress ordered that the tablets be made available to anyone living within 20 miles of a nuclear reactor.

Congress issued the order based on fears that terrorists could attack a nuclear plant. The once-a-day pills protect the thyroid against ingested radioactive iodine by saturating it with harmless potassium iodide, thus guarding against thyroid cancer following radioactive exposure.

Back when the White House was focused on conjuring images of mushroom clouds to sell the Iraq war, it called potassium iodide pills crucial to preventing thyroid cancer. But now that it's looking like we might actually need all those nuclear reactors - plus a whole lot more of them - to power the country, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is arguing against distributing the pills.

"According to the NRC, the pills may not be the most effective way to prevent cancer and could undermine confidence in the U.S. nuclear plants," the paper reports.

In a sign of where he stands now, President Bush stripped the Health and Human Services of responsibility for the program and turned it over to the NRC in July.

The American Thyroid Association is furious. "If you entrust our kids' health to nuclear engineers instead of doctors," said Peter Crame, a former lawyer with the NRC and thyroid cancer advocate, "you are inviting disaster."

Phone Companies Seeking Immunity Donated To Senator

This morning's installment of Not Illegal But Still Totally Depressing Behavior In Washington comes courtesy of the New York Times.

The paper reports that executives at the two biggest phone companies contributed more than $42,000 to Sen. John Rockefeller IV, D-W.Va., this year while seeking his support for legal immunity for business participating in the National Security Agency eavesdropping.

The contributions come from "a Who's Who of executives" at AT&T and Verizon, starting with the chief executives and including at least 50 executives and lawyers, according to campaign finance reports.

Rockefeller, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, emerged last week as the most important supporter of immunity in devising a compromise plan with Senate Republicans and the Bush administration, the paper reports.

A measure approved by the committee on Thursday would add restrictions on the eavesdropping and extent retroactive immunity to carriers that participated in it. The companies face big lawsuits from customers who say their privacy was violated when the telecoms helped the government snoop on them without warrants.

Rockefeller denies that the sudden surge in telecom contributions swayed his opinion. One of his supporters backs him up by pointing out the obvious: the guy's name is John D. Rockefeller IV.

"That these phone companies are going to focus their lobbying efforts where their business interests are is no revelation," said Matt Bennett, vice president for Third Way, a moderate Democraticy policy group that has supported immunity for phone carriers. "That's the standard Washington way of doing business. But you're not going to buy a Rockefeller."

Incoming!

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