Bruno Comby, President of Environmentalists for Nuclear. He is an author on 11 books on nuclear energy, the environment, and healthy living.: Iodine tablets have been distributed around French nuclear sites since shortly after Tchernobyl in 1986. But they were until now distributed in a radius of “only” 10 km around each NPP site to a total population of about 700 000 for the whole of France (less than 1% of the total population). In case of a nuclear accident with any amount of external leakage, all the population in that zone will probably be instructed to swallow the tablet. It gives politicians the feeling they can take an important decision to “save” (most probably from a low dose exposure and nonexistent danger) the population in case of a major accident. Playing this needless game will hurt public acceptance of nuclear power. The government doesn't issue pills to save the population from any other risk from modern living. This is an extreme example of being fored to use the Linear No-Threshold model, LNT, for estimating risk of low dose radiation exposure. That is what the anti-nuclear forces want. It could mean the end of nuclear power in Europe and North America. The risk of dying from living near or an accident at a nuclear power plant is much lower than all other activities, including just living in a cabin out in the wilderness.