I saw this story about Chinese buying up table salt for treatment of radioactive iodine-131 from Japan (possibly).

Japan radiation fears spark panic salt-buying in China
http://www.latimes.com/news/la-fg-china-iodine-salt-20110318,0,4281601.story?track=rss

I knew it that wouldn't work, but I did some checking.

Prophylactic KI contains 130milligrams of KI for an adult dose of one tablet per day for up to 10 days, depending on the expected length of exposure. (http://ki4u.com/#5)

Iodized salt contains 67 micrograms of iodine per 1/4 tsp. It would take 1940 quarter teaspoon doses of iodized salt to equal one 130mg tablet dose. That's about 10CUPS/6.4lbs of salt!!! (almost 4 - 26oz. cartons)

A little checking (http://members.tripod.com/~Prof_Anil_Aggrawal/POISO014.HTML) and I found that 40tsp/13Tbsp/8.4oz/>3/4C of salt is considered a fatal dose for a 154lb human.

So, in order to get the prophylactic dose of KI from iodized table salt, you'd need to take 13.3 times the fatal dosage of salt EACH day!



Here's some information on the topical application of Iodine.

If Potassium Iodide tablets and access to health care is not available, Iodine tincture should NOT be ingested. Some research has been done showing that applying tincture of Iodine to the skin will allow absorption and protection.

A 1989 study headed by Health Physicist Ken Miller of the Hershey Medical Center conducted on 24 healthy adult male subjects tested the effectiveness of topically applied tincture of Iodine. The subjects were administered a blocking dose of stable iodine by painting 8 ml of a 2 percent tincture of Iodine on a 200 x 100mm area of the abdomen for one group and a 4ml dose administered to a 200mm x 50mm area of the forearm for another group approximately 2 hours prior to I-131 contamination. The synopsis of the study found that "Although there were large variations within each subject group in regard to serum-I (Iodine) levels and thyroid uptakes, the increase in serum-I concentration after topical-I application was effective in reducing the thyroid uptake of I-131. The authors conclude that IN THE ABSENSE OF KI, most humans would benefit from topical application of tincture of-I, and that in some the effectiveness would equal that of oral KI."
(The abstract of his study entitled "Effectiveness of Skin Absorption of Tincture of I in Blocking Radioiodine from the Human Thyroid Gland" published in Health Physics, June 1989, Vol. 56, No. 6, pages 911-914, http://toxnet.nlm.nih.gov/cgi-bin/sis/search/f?./temp/~vL9NcN:1 )