Travel Safety: Forget Those Iodine Pills

I was traveling in the former East (Communist) Germany when Chernobyl exploded in nearby Ukraine, and I remember the panic in East Berlin when news that drifting radioactive waste was heading towards that city. There was little iodine to be had in the Communist pharmacies, in any case, and some East Germans begged me to go buy iodine for them in West Berlin and bring it back for them. When I finally got back to West Berlin, there were no pills left in drugstores there, anyhow.

Americans needn't panic just yet about the nuclear disaster in Japan. It will have its effects in that country, where people may be directly affected, but every expert contacted here says you need not worry about radiation in Japan having an affect on you. Just as happened with the Chernobyl explosion in the USSR years ago, when only trace amounts reached the U.S., practically none of the radiation being released in Fukushima now will ever reach the U.S., and then only in negligible amounts. So don't copy those Americans who have panicked and run to their drugstores to get as many packages of potassium iodide as they could.

"The best thing to do is nothing," thyroid expert Mary Shomon says. These tablets are supposed to be taken just before, or immediately after, actual exposure to radiation; otherwise, they won't work at all. And they may just be harmful to those who take them when not exposed to radiation.


Note: I blog here exclusively on travel health and safety, backed by my work as pro bono vice president of the not-for-profit charity, the International Association for Medical Assistance to Travellers, www.iamat.org.

Source: http://www.frommers.com/community/blogs/behind-the-guides.cfm?plckController=Blog&plckScript=blogScript&plckElementId=blogDest&plckBlogPage=BlogViewPost&plckPostId=Blog%3a7de34cd3-aed1-4a4a-83e2-9fb0419bd278Post%3a3c3f9b94-9ee1-4f79-8f6f-11dbc66cd5d6

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