Thursday, August 25, 2011

WSJ: "States Urged to Offer Radiation Pills"

Thursday Aug 25 p. A4 print edition

Excerpt: "U.S. law requires the president to authorize the distribution of pills to people living within 20 miles of reactors to protect them against a type of cancer caused by radiation exposure. The pills--containing inexpensive potassium iodine--can prevent thyroid cancer by saturating the thyroid gland with a harmless type of iodine, keeping it from absorbing radioactive iodine that might be inhaled or ingested after a radiation release...The law was never implemented..."

Majia here: It is interesting to read the stated reason why the law was never implemented.

John Marburger, Bush's science advisor who died last month from lymphoma, exercised an exemption that "allowed the president to skip distribution in an extended area beyond an existing 10-mile emergency zone if a 'more effective prophylaxis or preventive measure' was identified"

Apparently, Marburger favored "avoidance of exposure altogether...through evacuation...and interdiction of contaminated food..."

MAJIA HERE: At some level, this entire discussion is absurd. Potassium iodine only helps prevent thyroid cancer caused by radioactive iodine and does nothing to prevent cancer or other diseases from strontium, cesium, plutonium, uranium, and all the other exotic elements that are released in nuclear disasters.

Furthermore, there exists considerable evidence that the effects of radioactive iodine in nuclear accidents are distributed very widely.

Nowhere is that better demonstrated than in the bird study conducted by Dr. Dave DeSante, from the Institute on Bird Populations, on Chernobyl’s effects on infant bird mortality.
http://enenews.com/huge-spike-in-us-infant-mortality-in-the-four-months-after-chernobyl-video


Furthermore, Jay Gould and Benjamin Goldman demonstrate that radioactive iodine from Chernobyl impacted humans as well in North America
http://www.amazon.com/Deadly-Deceit-Low-level-Radiation-High-level/dp/0941423352

These studies demonstrate empirically that distribution of iodine within 10 mile zone of a nuclear disaster is an extraordinarily limited step.

The only prophylactic that is effective against the terrors of radiation-induced illness is the elimination of nuclear power and weapons.

Nuclear engineering is truly what the Greeks warned us about with the story of Pandora's box.



1 comment:

  1. Indeed, in the absence of maps on the progression of radioactivity which adds on the northern hemisphere since March 11... It was soon around the world who will take pellets of iodine!

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