Do potasium iodide pills help counteract or prevent radiation effects?
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Can’t add text to the post so here is some backstory:
I am from Romania. During the chernobyl explosion in 1986, the romanian government distributed potasium iodide pills (probably to counteract the radiation effects or to prevent them). I heard some medical staff that these pills do not help against the radiations. I heard that it was a communist practice, meaning it was a cheap way to try to prevent casualties, but actually they did it to create the impression the situation is under control. Now with the current situation in Ukraine, there is a risk that something might cause some powerplants to explode because the Ukrainian nuclear power plants are under russian soldiers control. So the officials anounced that they will stock on iodide pills. Do they really help?
It prevents cancer development in the thyroid glands which are prone to radiation, it was quite commonly bought after chernobyl.
TLDR: it prevents you from absorbing radioactive Iodine-131 into your thyroid
Iodine-131 is one of the Radioactive isotopes released after a nuclear accident. Iodine is absorbed by your thyroid and it holds onto it for a long time, so this radioactive form of it can lead to thyroid cancer.
But this isotope only has a half-life of 8 days, so it leaves the environment very quickly.
So by eating iodine tablets for the first few weeks after an incident you essentially overload you thyroid preventing it from absorbing the radioactive isotope.
After a few weeks most of the radioactive iodine has decayed and is no longer in the environment so eating iodine tablets no longer has a significant effect at reducing cancer.
Potassium iodide (or KI) prevents the absorbtion of radioactive iodine by your thyroid gland. This prevents damage to your thyroid gland ONLY. Your thyroid needs iodine to create hormones, and KI is a stable, non-radioactive form of iodine. Most of the iodine we need we get from the food we eat, and KI is this same type of iodine in medicinal form.
If radioactive iodine is released into the air after a nuclear event and we breathe it, our thyroid quickly absorbs it. KI prevents our thyroid from absorbing those radioactive particles.
KI does not offer protection from any other radioactive particles, or for any other parts of your body. It is strictly to prevent your thyroid from absorbing radioactive iodine.
One of the isotopes in *fresh* nuclear waste is iodine-131, which is very radioactive. The human thyroid gland needs iodine, so if I-131 is what’s on offer, it’ll be taken in, and then as it decays it’ll irradiate the surrounding tissue, potentially causing thyroid cancer.
So if there’s a risk of ingesting I-131, it’s recommended to take iodine pills; the thyroid won’t take more than it needs so the radioactive iodine will just pass through the body and be excreted. I-131 has a half-life of only 8 days, so people would only need to do this for a few weeks before the risk goes away.
No. What KI pills do is prevent your thyroid, which absorbs iodine, from absorbing radioactive iodine. Certain types of radioactive accidents (such as a reactor meltdown) may release radioactive iodine, which your thyroid will soak up like a sponge (you inhale or drink it, it gets into your blood, and it lodges in your thyroid). The radioactive iodine decays very quickly and will rapidly damage DNA in and around the thyroid and lead to cancer there.
The iodine does not counteract radioactive iodine — you have to take it before your observe the radioactive iodine to be helpful.
The iodine also does absolutely nothing at all with regard to radiation or other radioactive fallout.
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