Please, I need some advice regarding Potassium Iodide tablets for Radiation(serious vanity)

[Scythian]

I have potassium iodide tablets, I thought they were expired but they're good through 4/11 so I'm good. Drudge has a nuclear plants ready to blow in Japan and another ready to blow (who knows?). I have three kids. How are we going to know to use these tablets if we have to? I hope the stupid people in charge don't keep us in the dark until it's too late.

What are we to do?

[OCCASparky]

Nothing. You don’t need them. Put them back.

[diverteach]

Buy a gieger counter.

[dila813]

First rule of journalism, if it bleeds it leads.

Keep this in mind when reading stories.

[cripplecreek]

I think I trust the Japanese with this stuff more than our own government.

[goseminoles]

“What are we to do?”

Have a cold beer?

[justsaynomore]

What you said :)

[Bean Counter]

If things ever progress to the point that you need to take potassium iodide tablets, we have bigger problems afoot than those tablets will ever cure.

Put them away.

[Scythian]

Nothing. You don’t need them. Put them back.

Radiation levels inside a Japanese nuclear power plant have surged to 1,000 times their normal levels after today's 8.9-magnitude earthquake knocked out power to a cooling system, and tsunami floods have hampered efforts to get it restored.

http://abcnews.go.com/International/japan-earthquake-nuclear-reactor-damaged-yields-high-radiation/story?id=13114181

This has me kind of concerned ...

[TsonicTsunami08]

Get upwind and put as much distance between your family and the source of the radiation!

God Speed

[Scythian]

http://abcnews.go.com/International/japan-earthquake-nuclear-reactor-damaged-yields-high-radiation/story?id=13114181

[Brad from Tennessee]

Link to map of prevailing winds across the world. I'm sure there are more sophisticated maps close to real-time via Google:

http://maps.howstuffworks.com/world-prevailing-winds-map.htm

[Slip18]

Go to Google or Bing and find out the facts for the use of this mineral for use in radiation poison.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

First of all, potassium iodide is a salt. Unless you deliberately contaminate or expose it, it will last forever.

Second of all, if circumstances occur that require you to take it, there will be lots worse things to worry about than a little radiation poisoning.

[fso301]

The Russian mistake at Chernoble was failing to issue warnings against eating leafy green vegetables or drinking milk.

Those two things would have prevented most of the deaths

[driftdiver]

“When Potassium Iodide is taken as directed, it literally “floods” the thyroid with a stabilized iodine, basically saturating the thyroid gland so that the radioactive Iodine 131 particles cannot find a home and is expelled out the normal body waste channels. Potassium Iodide tablets can prevent up to 99% of the damage caused by radioactive nuclear fallout (dust). “

Or so the people who sell it say. Sounds like you dont need to take any unless there’s a major event. This doesn’t include the release of a small amount of gas.

[svcw]

It is salt. Salt like sugar pretty much lasts forever. These use by dates in many cases are bogus.

[mnehring]

Are you even remotely close to the area in question? If not, relax, undue stress isn’t good for one’s health. If you are close, consult authorities or doctors, not people on the internet.

[Frantzie]

Are you in Japan?

[Cicero]

I presume that this would produce less radiation all the way around the world in the U.S. than the atomic bomb trials in the Pacific did.

In other words, trivial.

If there’s anything to worry about, Al Gore will tell us.