Re: Finns Hoard Iodine Fearing Russian Nuclear Mishap & other news

[Franz Schoenhofer <schoenho@via.at>]

At 10:35 29.12.1999 -0600, you wrote:
>Greetings,
>
>I have a question is this normal practice in the Northern / Scandinavian 
>Europe to buy a supplementary Iodine? Because I have lived in Russia,
Germany 
>and US and I always used Iodine salt and it was and it is ENOUGH. 
>I am just wondering about the side effects of the Iodine overdose. ;-)
>I remember here was a discussion of the Iodine administration risk and 
>benefits.
>The person who was working on this issue is not with us anymore.
>Is there any body who could help me out with this question?
>Thank you.
>Emil.
>kerembaev@cs.com 


Emil,

The iodine tablets are intended to be taken when a radioactive cloud from a
nuclear explosion is approaching or when only food contaminated with I-131
is available, in order to block the thyroid against uptake of radioactive
iodine. (Iodine and therefore also I-131 are concentrated in the thyroid
and can lead to very high doses and even thyroid cancer. On the other hand
high activities of I-131 can be used to destroy cancer cells in the
thyroid, just because it will accumulate in the thyroid.) To take the pills
with the stable iodine does only help if they are taken before I-131 is
incorporated. Therefore obviously some people buy the iodide pills just to
be prepared for a disaster at a Russian or Lithuanian nuclear power plant,
caused by a Y2K fault. Well, you know what irrational fears are evoked by
the mass media in connection with nuclear power plants and Y2K - why should
it be different in Finland?

By the way, the amount of contamination of air and food outside the
vicinity of the Chernobyl area in Europe did not justify the intake of
iodine pills. I know that in some parts of Poland actually potassium iodine
solutions were adminstered, but the only sense was to be cautious,
afterhand it proved not to have been necessary. 

There was some time ago a thread about the use of stable iodine at RADSAFE.

Best regards and let us hope that we will survive the change to the next
year, so that we can one year later celebrate the new millenium..... (I
hope Melissa does not notice this remark.)

Franz


Franz Schoenhofer
Habicherg. 31/7
A-1160 Vienna
Austria
Tel.: +43-1-495 53 08
Fax.: same number
mobile phone: +43-664-338 0 333
e-mail: schoenho@via.at

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