Eat seaweed for iodine for today's nuke fallout (and other facts and rants)

Eat seaweed for iodine for today's nuke fallout (and other facts and rants)

As low-level radioactive fallout from Japan’s nuclear accident drifts thru our skies, let's review about eating iodine as antidote to radioactive exposure. This essay gathers useful knowledge on the entwined topics of iodine, radiation, seaweed, the thyroid, corporate sociopaths and Solartopia.

Taking iodine can help limit the ill effects of exposure to nuclear radiation. Short version: Eat lots of seaweed and iodised salt, maybe get iodine supplements. Definitely, 2011 is the year of seaweed-miso soup for the whole planet. Seaweed has iodine, and draws out toxins to boot. It won’t hurt anyone to go the health food store and buy Iodine Supplements and Iodized salt and seaweed and enjoy a few months of an intentionally salty seaweed diet. The more the body is filled up with regular iodine, the less inclined the thyroid is to uptake radioactive iodine isotopes created by nuclear fission.

An herbalist friend tells me of a Japanese clinic in '45 that fed everybody miso/seaweed soup. The staff who ate it every day didn’t get cancer and most patients too. But this isn’t just hippie wisdom. (Praise be to the Hippies!) Potassium Iodine (whose initials are: KI) was widely given out after Cherynobyl and it worked great to stop thyroid cancer. In Poland, they gave Potassium Iodine (KI) to 1o.7 million kids, and they didn't get thyroid cancer. In the Ukraine and right around Cherynobyl, people got cancer who didn't get the medicine because supplies ran out (and/or nobody wanted to drive into the nuke’s secondhand smoke with it.)

So the evidence is very strong for encouraging taking the KI pills, especially if you are within 500 km from the radioactive plume. Thyroid cancer was pretty much the only cancer that people got 10 years after Cherynobyl. People who got the KI medicine didn’t get increased rates of cancer. This suggests that Potassium Iodine is super helpful, especially right after initial exposure.

The thyroid concentrates “various radioactive isotopes of iodine produced by nuclear fission. The uptake of radioactive iodine can, in theory, be blocked by saturating the uptake mechanism with a large surplus of non-radioactive iodine, taken in the form of potassium iodine pills” according to Wikipedia. “So what is the thyroid again?” we both ask of Wikipedia. “The thyroid controls how quickly the body uses energy, makes proteins, and controls how sensitive the body should be to other hormones.”

The thyroid system is made of glands including and around the Adam’s apple. If you rub your fingers around your neck to the sides of your Adam’s apple, you’ll be massaging your parasympathetic thyroid, sort of backup glands to the thyroid. Recently I was exposed to some strong industrial chemicals and I noticed my thyroids were enlarged and irritated, as if they were processing toxins.

Taking the KI pills are no piece of cake, so everybody probably doesn’t want to race to Rite Aid for it. Wikipedia suggests that there are some tough "adverse reactions" to the KI medication. More mildly, upset stomach and acne! More seriously and call the doc, skin rash, vomiting, irregular heartbeat. Who should take Potassium Iodine (KI) because of the Japanese nuke explosions? Probably every Japanese person under 18 should take it right away. Young people in nearby Asia, maybe. For those beyond 500 km, it’ probably not worth the unpleasant side effects like nausea, acne, etc.

The World Health Organization recommends the treatment for young people up to 18 in particular, presumably because the thyroid is still growing and thus is more susceptible to some radioactive flyby by some bit of nuke soot. People over 40 shouldn’t bother taking the Potassium Iodine, because they probably wouldn't get the thyroid cancer anyway as compared to the unpleasant side effects from taking it.

The WHO report says there is some disagreement on the dosage amount to take. The WHO recommends 1/10th the dosage that is recommended by the ”International basic safety standards.” On the question of who should take the KI, Wikipedia says that up to 500 miles around Cherynobyl people got thyroid cancer, so, I guess it follows that you'd have to be 500 km from Japan's reactors to get it.

Here are some quotes from Wikipedia on the topic: “The US Food and Drug Administration recommends 150 micrograms of iodine per day for both men and women.

“Iodine is a micro nutrient that is naturally present in the food supply of many regions. However, where natural levels of iodine are in the soil are low and the iodine is not taken up by vegetables, iodine added to salt provides the small but essential amount needed by humans.

“Iodized salt is table salt mixed with a minute amount of various iodine-containing salts. Worldwide, iodine deficiency affects about two billion people and is the leading preventable cause of mental retardation. The use of iodised salt is an efficient way to add iodine to the diet. Iodide-treated table salt slowly loses it’s iodine content by process of oxidation. When table salt comes into contact with the oxygen in the air (oxidation), it releases iodine.” (So open a fresh container of iodised salt and treat the whole dang family to the Salty Food Diet.)

A sailor friend tells of being on a sailboat somewhat near Chernobyl at the time. The gov't's official weather reports suddenly stopped reporting the accurate movements of the winds. The sailors knew the winds because they were watching closely and gathering weather news from other sources. If they had listened to official weather reports they would have sailed to France and gone into the plume. (Cue Bob Dylan: “Don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.”) And the wind matters, Chernobyl poisoned the fruit trees in Greece and Turkey, and rain deer in Finland, sheep in Scotland, all depending on the wind drift of the plume.

For years, calm and smart people have been working to get Vermont to shut down the Nuclear Reactor that just like the one that exploded in Japan. Democracy Now reports both were built near the same time, by the same company GE, and with the same crapp-o design, with crap engineering on the too-small containment cooling part. Good thing that Vermont’s Governor Shumlin is committed to shutting down VT’s doppleganger nuke and creating a post-Yankee Comprehensive Energy Plan, complete with citizen input!

Usually I picture Homer Simpson when thinking about nuclear power plant employees. And so it happens, an earthquake and suddenly, “Doe-!Uh!” the cooling system doesn't work cause the power is off, and suddenly this incredibly complicated nuclear fission cooking process is overheating above 2200 degrees and water molecules rip apart and the hydrogen gathers out of the water (H20!) and KA-BOOM! Damn this is a complicated chemical process to be left in the hands of the Homer Simpsons, and worse, the Montgomery Burns of the world. There are reports that the Japanese plant owners waited too long before flooding the plant with salt water because it ruined their investment. Wow, a new low. Oh greedy people, please throttle back and live within the reality of our biologically-based world.

In terms of the Climate Crisis, humanity's excessive burning of fossil fuels may break the sky, and thus expose our soft skin to the radiation coming from our great nuclear Sun. The sky is so precious as our blast shield/sunglasses in cutting the sun’s nuclear glare. There may come a time in the future when people are taking potassium iodine as a daily dietary supplement to counteract the increased radioactivity of the world because of climate collapse. Boy, that’s a dire scenario instead of just early-adopting a green Solartopia future of clean Carbon-Neutral energy.

May the better angels of Humanity’s Nature lead us into a living future.