potassium dose and source
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130 mg tabs....more info at the link

How And When To Take Potassium Iodide
Potassium iodide should be taken as soon as possible after public health officials tell you. You should take one dose every 24 hours. More will not help you because the thyroid can "hold" only limited amounts of iodine. Larger doses will increase the risk of side effects. You will probably be told not to take the drug for more than 10 days.
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http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00006N...modesurvblog-20

With that guy in N Korea threatening an A bomb attack wouldnt be a bad idea to make sure your rad preps are there.While I think credibility is very low,this is cheap insurance.

I picked up a couple of these for the BOB's
http://www.amazon.com/iOSAT-Potassium-Iodide-Tablets-130/dp/B00006NT3A

iOSAT Potassium Iodide Tablets, 130 mg (14 Tablets)
by iOSAT

Price: $7.38 ($3.84 / oz)

In Stock.
Ships from and sold by

Please read all label information upon delivery
Reduces chance of thyroid damage in a radiation emergency
Safe for babies, children, pregnant and nursing women, those taking medicine for thyroid problem
One dose every 24 hours for no more than 10 days
Possible side effects include skin rash, swelling salivary glands, iodism

KI pills are not particularly useful during most radiation events. They only protect against uptake of radioactive iodines, and won't protect you from any external exposure even to that.

Ensure that you don't have an iodine allergy before taking these, or you could do yourself a lot more harm than good.

If it is recommended that stable iodine be taken, you can use Betadine, water purifying tabs, iodized salt or any other source of stable iodine and have the same protective effect.

Greg

Bumping this old thread on Fukushima.
The Japanese power company increased the risk ratings at Fukushima this last week. Independent experts say the problem of leakage of radioactive elements into the Pacific Ocean is worse than they are telling.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-23779561

Pete2

Awaiting Godzilla to emerge!!

Record player with "Blue Oyster Cult" album on stand-by...

OK - well I'm in California.
I'll start checking the sand on the beach each day and see if I see any big footprints.

So far I've tried to avoid the usual paranoia and have not bought a Geiger Counter or any other radiation detector. But I've got to wonder - who's checking our seafood for radiation levels. And would they tell us the truth ... if they got a high reading?

Pete2

Er, Nope. Did your local and national government advise you the dangers of the Nuclear fallout hot particles in California 2 years ago?

BTW if its a Plutonium hot particle (Fukishima Diachi 3 MOX reactor) it will loose half its radioactivity after about 34,000 years.

Along similar lines, I've wondered about seafood from the Gulf after Deepwater Horizon. That's gotta be one of the biggest science experiments around, pouring millions of gallons of Corexit into the ecosystem. Where did all that crude go? The question you gotta ask is, "Does anyone profit from warning us? Does anyone profit from NOT warning us?"

Well, another option is the "Charlie Brown and Lucy playing football" trick--right when you're about to hit the alarm button to warn people about levels being too high, just raise the "acceptable" level of radiation even higher and all that radioactive worry just sails right on by.

But back to Fukushima, the situation seems to be getting worse again, with all the recent news about contaminated groundwater flowing into the sea, or even worse, undetected leaks of highly contaminated reactor cooling water from storage tanks on site. And by "leaks," I'm talking tons of water per day. TEPCO has no idea how to stop either problem. There's talk of raising the nuclear disaster threat level from a 1 back to 3 over these issues.

They're so lucky that they haven't had another big quake in the immediate area for a long time. I don't think most of these jury rigged external storage tanks and cooling systems are that robust, from what I've read.

TEPCO is getting closer (that's a relative term) to starting to actually remove fuel assemblies from the spent fuel pool, from Reactor 4 first, IIRC. No easy task. The original overhead cranes and equipment were destroyed. The area is highly radioactive. The fuel assemblies were buried in debris from the cranes and building, the rods were overheated, and sat in salt water for all this time. No telling what condition they are in or whether they can even be removed safely without bursting into flames once in the open air and releasing radiation, or worst case, triggering a nuclear reaction right in the fuel pool if they jostle enough fuel assemblies close together. Sounds like the script from a movie but unfortunately, it's real life and going on right now.

"Along similar lines, I've wondered about seafood from the Gulf after Deepwater Horizon. That's gotta' be one of the biggest science experiments around, pouring millions of gallons of Corexit into the ecosystem"

that's a good point Arney. I scratched my head on that one too. How could they pour all that chemical contamination into the Gulf, then come out with TV adds (6-12 months later) proclaiming a "miracle recovery" after the accident. seems like a lot of people are eating the Corexit pollutant every time they order sushi in the USA.

Something needs to be DONE about Fukushima. This situation is clearly beyond anything that the Japanese know how to handle. The world needs to draw a line, tell them to stop and become transparent with their data, and get some global experts in there fast.

Pete2