Put Down the Potassium Iodide, Now!
Mar 31, 2011 by James Hyde
People across the country are buying up potassium iodide (KI) any way they can. If you’re one of ‘em and you’re about to pop or drink it to protect yourself from Japan’s Fukushima’s accident, stop! Put it down and listen up.
There is no need to take potassium iodide at this point in time. If you do, you could make yourself good and sick. In fact, poison control centers and hospitals here in the U.S. have been receiving increasing numbers of phone calls and ER visits from people suffering the side effects, which aren’t pleasant.
The misconceptions about the on-going crisis at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant are legion and are causing people here to panic and dose themselves with KI thinking they’re protecting their entire bodies from radiation. They then wonder why they start throwing up.
While doom sayers claim that the Fukushima accident will be as bad as or worse than Chernobyl, they are comparing apples to elephants, and any need to be concerned, much less panicked, is vapor-based—at least at this point; no one knows what the final outcome will be.
That aside, the differences between the two incidents are radical. The Chernobyl reactor exploded, sending radiation spewing into the atmosphere. The problems at Fukushima involve meltdowns, two entirely different disaster scenarios. Meltdowns do not send massive amounts of radiation into the Jet Stream and spread high concentrations of fallout around the globe, according to physicists with whom I’ve checked.
Meltdowns tend to affect the areas in and around the plant’s location and then move outward, but not globally. They can leak various types of radiation into the ground, air and water, but the fallout remains localized, as it is now. I say “tends to” because it’s not impossible that radiation could reach a broader area if a full meltdown of one or more reactors occurs. But even then, the likelihood that any of it could hit us in appreciable concentrations just isn’t likely.
In fact, what’s arrived in California so far is one-billionth the amount of normal background radiation to which we are exposed daily. So to take KI prophylactically in the complete absence of radioactive iodine is analogous to taking full spectrum antibiotics when you hear that someone in the next town has pneumonia.
First, taking it now is wasting it. Second, there are some very unpleasant side effects. Third, if you take it now it’ll dissipate by the time you may really need it. Fourth, it’s as scarce as hens’ teeth due to panic buying, and demand is climbing because people are misinformed. In fact, you’re far more likely to need it for a dirty bomb than for anything coming from Japan.
Checking with the experts, I came across a statement issued by the executive director of the Colorado Department of Public Health, Dr. Chris Urbina. He says, “There is no need for people to seek [note “seek,” much less “take”] potassium iodide. Using potassium iodide when it is unnecessary could cause intestinal upset (vomiting, nausea and diarrhea), rashes, allergic reactions, soreness of teeth and gums, and inflammation of the salivary glands. Pregnant women and the developing fetus are particularly sensitive to the health risks of taking potassium iodide.”
His statement was prompted by the discovery of trace amounts of radiation in Colorado rainwater (not ground water). A trace amount means that an element is detectable, but in amounts so small they can’t be easily quantified (measured accurately).
Dr. Urbina’s view is fully backed up by the EPA. According to that agency, “In a typical day, Americans receive doses of radiation from natural sources like rocks, bricks and the sun that are about 100,000 times higher than what we have detected coming from Japan. For example, the levels we’re seeing coming from Japan are 100,000 times lower than what you get from taking a roundtrip international flight.”
It’s critical that you understand that potassium iodide is not a chemical that will protect your whole body, nor will it protect you from all kinds of radiation. It is effective in protecting your thyroid and then only before you are exposed to radioactive iodine, which you haven’t been and aren’t likely to be.
The thyroid is your body’s iodine magnet. If you know you’re about to be exposed to radioactive iodine, taking KI forces the thyroid to “take it up,” filling the gland so the radioactive stuff can’t be absorbed.
So far, radioactive iodine has been found only in seawater near the Fukushima plant (not in the air), and while the concentrations are high, they are subsiding, and what is being measured has not spread very far into Pacific waters.
Currently, there is no chance that that radioactive iodine will arrive here via Pacific currents. The prevailing current heads toward Japan. When it reaches the archipelago, it splits. The stronger of the two heads north past the Japanese island of Hokkaido, and the other between Japan and mainland Asia. Only if radioactive iodine seeped into our drinking water or air would we be exposed to it.
So far, the trace amounts of radiation (none of which was radioactive iodine) found in California, Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania were in rainwater, not drinking water.
You should take potassium iodide only if you are advised that radioactive iodine is headed your way in dangerous concentrations. For now, put it away because you don’t want the potential side effects, especially if you take it without reason, and you never know when you might really need it. That time has not yet arrived.
http://drscoundrels.com/2011/03/31/put-down-the-potassium-iodide-now/
The biggest obstacle to freedom and liberty is not knowing what freedom and liberty are.
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