The scientist who has warned that the Irish are particularly vulnerable to ill effects from a nuclear incident will today address a meeting on Washington's Capitol Hill on the issue.
The special conference was called in response to US concerns about terrorist attacks involving radioactivity.
Dr Peter Smyth, senior lecturer in medicine at University College Dublin, will discuss the Government's decision to distribute iodine tablets to every home in the State.
Dr Smyth sat on the Consultative Committee on Nuclear Emergency Planning, an expert group set up by government to recommend how best to reduce illness and death should a nuclear incident occur.
The tablets are meant to protect people against harm caused by radioactive iodine gas released in an attack or accident at the Sellafield plant in Cumbria or any British nuclear power plant. The gas can cause cancer in the thyroid gland in the neck.
US officials are assessing the radioactive iodine risk and how best to make counteracting iodine tablets available to the public.
Dr Smyth said congressional staff, US military officers, doctors, radiation specialists and federal officials would attend today's meeting in a Capitol Hill hotel. He was asked to attend because of his involvement in the decision to distribute iodine tablets in Ireland and because of his specialist knowledge of diseases of the thyroid gland.
Dr Smyth pointed up a particular Irish vulnerability to radioactive iodine late in 2001 after the then minister of state for nuclear safety, Mr Joe Jacob, became embroiled in controversy over an apparent lack of government planning in case of nuclear terrorism.
He said daily intake of iodine was relatively low within the Irish population, increasing the risk of absorbing radioactive iodine after an incident.
