Does anyone use povidone-iodine for water treatment? Also, just read somewhere on the 'net (can't find it again) where the author uses the towelettes for water treatment. That is because the towelettes are dual use, which the author prefers.

Pros/Cons?

Iodine has been used for water treatment, can be used for water treatment. And there are better options as Doug discusses on the homepage.

I would seriously question the use of towellets. Topical iodine vs full strength are two different animals when it comes to biting nasties.

The towelettes are good for making a weak antiseptic fluid if you put a couple of them in a container of clean, sterile water. Use it for wound irrigation.

I wouldn't trust them to actually purify water.

JohnE

I actually like them. You are looking at a compact way to carry, store and tote around iodine and not worry "as much" about leaks. The swabs provide 3 roles

-clean wounds in their intended use
-color water a "weak tea" color for wound irrigation
-and yes you can purify water just as easily-either by counting the "drops per liter" of iodine needed for purification by literally squeezing them, or if you are familiar with the color of treated water, adding a swab at a time until you reach the right color, the wait out the proper time for disenfection and there you have it

sort of a 3 in one tool!

Furthermore: Purifying 1 quart of water takes about 8 drops of iodine, and this happens to be the amound in 1 prep-pad

Thanks for the feedback everyone. So, good for general wound treatment; not so good (not advisable) for drinking water?

reference: [url=http://www.high-altitude-medicine.com/water.html][/url] link

povidone may be just fine for purifying water. Dissenters might should provide footnotes.

They say it themselves - may not be effective for cycloosporidia. IIRC, the concern is that it doesn't get Cryptosporidia, which is fairly common in N America.

Personally, if I had to, I'd use it. That would be if I couldn't filter or boil. I figure that if I did get the diarrhea, it's supposed to be self-limiting. As long as I could maintain reasonable access to water, I'd just have to wait it out.

Besides, bad water is sometimes better than no water.

I have 59 MILLION dissenting reasons for depending on iodine.

Hypothyroid conditions can be exasperated by both deficiency and

excess of iodine. The above number are americans affected.

Necro/Bump

I recently heard about this too. It was in regards to the "WETSU" survival tin. I'm skeptical if it works, does anyone know?