The administration has failed to produce a plan for making sure that the nation has stockpiles of potassium iodide, a pill that can protect against thyroid cancer epidemics in the wake of attacks on nuclear power facilities. From the N.Y. Times: Amid fears of a terrorist attack's causing a leak from a nuclear power plant, a plan to stockpile pills to protect against one of the contaminants that spreads farthest appears to have slipped through the cracks. The Bioterrorism Act of 2002 required a study by scientists of how to store and distribute the pills, of potassium iodide, a drug that protects against radioactive iodine. Health officials say that in the event of a big release of radiation, the pills could prevent the thyroid cancer epidemic that struck Eastern Europe after the Chernobyl disaster in 1986. The idea that terrorists want to attack a power plant was bolstered this year by President Bush in his State of the Union address, in which he said American forces had found plans for American power plants in Afghanistan. The study, by an arm of the National Academy of Sciences and originally due to be completed in October 2002, was not finished until late last year. Mr. Bush had six months to issue guidance to state and local governments on stockpiling potassium iodide pills, but he has not done so. The failure to produce the plan is only the latest failure to strengthen homeland security from terrorist attacks on nuclear power plants. A recent report on homeland security gaps catalogues a series of failures to regulate vulnerable industries, and it links those failures with substantial contributions by the industries -- including, of course, the nuclear power industry -- to the Bush campaign coffers. Get the latest news account at Mattthew L. Wald, "Plan to Store Anti-Radiation Pills Is Overdue," N.Y. Times, Oct. 23, 2004, at A15.