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Health workers in the Canadian province of British Colombia discourages citizens from mass purchase of potassium iodide for radiation protection from the damaged Japanese Fukushima nuclear power plant.
After articles appeared on the Internet that iodide potassium supposedly helps prevent diseases caused by radiation, he was swept off the shelves of pharmacies, writes the local newspaper The Province. So the way residents of the province are trying to deal with the consequences of the accident at the Fukushima nuclear power plant, fearing that nuclear waste leaked into The Pacific Ocean can reach their native shores.
Potassium iodide is really useful in a number of cases, but from external he will not protect radiation, and overdoses of this substance can be dangerous. Pill sales soared immediately after the disaster, as well as in recent months. Pharmacist Pam Maggie with whom The Province correspondent was talking, I just had to at the door “of buyers who came to her pharmacy for “miraculous” pills.
“There were other cases where rumors baffled people, but “Fukushima” outdid everyone, “she said. According to her, iodide potassium is bought in quantities that are 100 times higher recommended dose: “I know a long list of pathologies that may cause such a dosage. I always say this to customers, and they leave, angry at my “stupidity.”
“Potassium iodide, – the website of the Society of Medical Physics, – mistakenly considered a “magical” radiation protection, but helps only when radioactive iodine enters the body and does not protects from the effects of external exposure or intoxication radionuclides. He saves only thyroid from radioactive iodine iron. ”
Meanwhile, the danger of radioactive contamination of Canadian coast due to the Fukushima disaster is greatly exaggerated doctors say. Dr. Glenn Braunstein working in Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, said in an interview the Huffington Post newspaper that the “dose of radiation you can get from the ocean, less than what you get when flying from Los Angeles to New York. ”
“If I lived near a nuclear power plant or in the same area, I would buy potassium iodide for your first aid kit. But in this case, it’s useless, “- says British Columbia chief physician Dr. Perry Kendall. An overdose of the substance threatens nausea, problems with breathing and pain in the limbs, he warns.
After the accident 3 years ago, the situation at the nuclear power plant remains extremely tense. Leakage of contaminated water is one of the main problems which are involved in the liquidators of the consequences of the Fukushima-1 accident. In early December 2013, a dangerous level of radiation was detected at plot near the hatches of the cooling system of reactors No. 1 and No. 2. It was highest radiation level ever recorded outside emergency facility. Around the same time, a record since the accident, the concentration of radioactive substances in the ground water under emergency nuclear power plant.
Water Time
