While reading the nuclear news, I ran across this article in USA Today. The comments posted are yet another example of people making comments about something they know nothing about. They let their fear dictate thoughts without proper information. Propaganda runs their minds.
Allow me to inform you a bit about these "anti-radiation" pills. The pills are an Iodine containing compound, usually potassium iodine. The fission of the uranium nucleus produces a great number of fragments, however the probability of some sizes of fragments are greater than others. Two of the are Xenon and Krypton. These fragments, known as fission products, change through radioactive decay to form other radioactive isotopes. Iodine is formed in this process.
In the human body, iodine is readily absorbed and stored in the thyroid glands to be used for the formation of hormones. The so called "anti-radiation" pills saturate the thyroids with iodine to prevent the iodine from being absorbed. This prevents radioactive iodine from concentrating in the body.
Cancer can be caused by radiation interacting with cells, causing them to divide uncontrolled. The pills only protect the thyroids leaving the remainder of the body to interact with other radioactive elements.
The only type of emergency that would cause major radioactive iodine release is a Chernobyl-type accident. US reactors are built differently so that the most major type of accident is similar to the Three Mile Island meltdown. Due to the differences in physical properties, properly constructed US nuclear plants cannot fail in the same explosive manner this minimizes the usefulness of the pills.
US nuclear plants are built to very conservative specifications. They are created to withstand a number of catastrophic events, including terrorist attacks. People do not understand the construction of the plants. My own personal experience has led me to believe nuclear power to be very safe.
People do not understand the pills are a last line of defense in a nuclear accident. The pills are isotope specific, meaning the remainder of the fission products and daughter-products will still affect the body through being deposited in the bone, lungs, GI tract, and on the skin. The pills will not provide the protection that people think. It is more like spitting on a forest fire; it may help, but how much?
