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‘Would you survive 72 hours?’ Germany and the Nordic countries prepare citizens for possible war
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 30 Nov 2024
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Iodine is something that's hard to get in modern diets, which is why salt is iodized.
Our body uses it in our thyroid, and atomic weapons send out a shit ton of fallout. A significant amount is radioactive iodine, which is going to be hanging around for a while.
If your body picks it up, you now have a radioactive element accumulating in your throat, which is a pretty bad place to store a radioactive mass.
If you don't have iodine tablet, eat a crazy amount of iodized salt. You want to make sure if your body runs into radioactive iodine, it's already full up and can't hold anymore.
Wonder if there's a way to extract the iodine to avoid getting high blood pressure from eating fistfuls of salt
You could just buy iodine tablets now...
But the high blood pressure from salt might kill you decades later.
A radioactive thyroid would make you wish for death as your lower jaw rots away and eventually falls off.
Don't half ass it because of a fear of heart disease. A large dose kills cells in your thyroid (still terrible) a moderate dose wouldn't kill the cells but almost guarantee rapid onset cancer.
It's why the tablets aren't "enough that your body needs" they're "a literal insane amount". Like take your daily requirement times 3-5 years level of crazy.
Also, I'm pretty sure they have an expiration date. If it's life or death, I would not trust them very far past that date. I don't think they'd be harmful, just less effective.
You can expect KI to expire like NaCl does.
The filler might be not ok after a long amount of time, but the KI will be and that's what saves your thyroid.
Here's some info regarding dosage:
from: https://www.fda.gov/regulatory-information/search-fda-guidance-documents/potassium-iodide-thyroid-blocking-agent-radiation-emergencies
Iodine like salt is a mineral. It won’t ever “go bad” but the USDA requires that you put expiration dates on consumables.
I have several packets of iodine pills they don’t cost much and I keep them with my bug out bag.
Which formulation of iodine is the one to get?
Here are the pills.
https://a.co/d/cxMjVpR
I also have a few vials of liquid iodine. But it is harder to dose properly.
Unless you are directly in the path of very recent fall out (within 8 days) as an adult those pills probably won’t do much for you. By the time you start seeing the effects of radiation you’ll be in your 70s.
If you have to ration iodine pills prioritize kids and teenagers and young adults. They would live long enough after the event to deal with cancer and its affects.
What does potassium iodide decay into? It's not an organic compound.
Iodide ion, as present in KI, does not decay. Period. It’s that ion that your body requires. The tablets would serve their purpose for long after they are purchased.
I don't know, I'm not any kind of chemist. I trust the actual chemists to tell me how long the pills will be trustworthy.
As a chemist, I will go ahead and inform you confidently that Potassium Iodide in a dry place will outlast you by a significant margin. It's very chemically stable.
What's the date for, then?
They’re required to put some date, and nobody wants to pay for a 50-year medical study to show what chemists already know: KI will still be KI.
Regulation compliance probably
Probably to account for people who won't store it properly, degradation of the packaging material, etc.
For example, if you store your blister pack of KI on a sunny shelf in your bathroom, UV rays eventually weaken the plastic packaging, cracks develop in the plastic letting in water vapor from your shower, and a stray mold space makes its way in as well and eventually you end up with mold growing on your pills. The KI itself may still be perfectly fine and able to do its job, but that mold might make you sick.
Idiodin itself can't get "bad" in any way. The carrier material might go bad, but that's also just starches and a few mineral compounds. At worst, you get powder instead of a pill.
The expiration dates on medication are intentionally extremely conservative.
Fascist dictators on a war path hate this one weird trick!
If you have enough radiation to ever need iodine tablets, there's probably a hundred other reasons that threaten your livelihood.
That's not true at all. Fallout can be carried by wind over very long distances. And even a small amount of radioactive iodine accumulative in the body can be an issue.
It's more the fact that a war situation where nuclear weapons are used so frequently that the average person will need tablets will also see shortages of food, water and created large flows of refugees.
Basically every bit of modern infrastructure would collapse, which would be far more impactful and urgent than iodine pills.
Again, you have it wrong.
All it takes is one nuke to go off and winds to carry the fallout to relatively stable countries far away.
But let's say that you are dealing with some level of societal collapse from nuclear war. You still need iodine. Without it, it won't matter if you secure food, water, and shelter, because you'll get some aggressive cancer and die anyways.
Regardless of the specifics, iodine is important.
I think they are saying the odds are low that it will be just one nuke. More likely none, several, or a lot than just one.