U.S. Buys Drug for Radioactive Fallout

The federal government recently bought 1.6 million doses of a drug that protects against certain kinds of radioactive fallout and will buy at least 6 million additional doses in the coming year to create a large national stockpile, the Department of Health and Human Services said.

Department officials had not announced the purchase of potassium iodide but did so after an article appeared in the Washington Post earlier this week in which some experts lamented the lack of a stockpile to deal with a possible terrorist attack on a nuclear power plant.