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Fears of Nuclear War Lead to Increased Sales of Potassium Iodide

posted by Fnord666 on Saturday January 13 2018, @04:33PM   Printer-friendly
from the kneejerk-reaction dept.

takyon writes:

Potassium iodide distributors have a friend on Twitter:

A Twitter battle over the size of each "nuclear button" possessed by President Donald Trump and North Korea's Kim Jong-un has spiked sales of a drug that protects against radiation poisoning.

Troy Jones, who runs the website www.nukepills.com, said demand for potassium iodide soared last week, after Trump tweeted that he had a "much bigger & more powerful" button than Kim — a statement that raised new fears about an escalating threat of nuclear war. "On Jan. 2, I basically got in a month's supply of potassium iodide and I sold out in 48 hours," said Jones, 53, who is a top distributor of the drug in the United States. His Mooresville, N.C., firm sells all three types of the product approved by the Food and Drug Administration. No prescription is required.

In that two-day period, Jones said, he shipped about 140,000 doses of potassium iodide, also known as KI, which blocks the thyroid from absorbing radioactive iodine and protects against the risk of cancer. Without the tweet, he typically would have sent out about 8,400 doses to private individuals, he said. Jones also sells to government agencies, hospitals and universities, which aren't included in that count.

Alan Morris, president of the Williamsburg, Va.-based pharmaceutical firm Anbex Inc., which distributes potassium iodide, said he's seen a bump in demand, too. "We are a wonderful barometer of the level of anxiety in the country," said Morris.

Note: A comment on the article claims that Nukepills is massively overcharging for the substance.

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  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Saturday January 13 2018, @10:26PM (4 children)

    by MichaelDavidCrawford (2339) Subscriber Badge <mdcrawford@gmail.com> on Saturday January 13 2018, @10:26PM (#621961) Homepage Journal

    It's used to treat a side effect of radiation treatment for cancer

    A defense engineer told me the fed stockpiled hundreds of millions of doses

    --
    Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   +2  
       Interesting=2, Total=2
    Extra 'Interesting' Modifier   0  
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  
    Total Score:   4  

  • (Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday January 13 2018, @10:47PM (1 child)

    by Ethanol-fueled (2792) on Saturday January 13 2018, @10:47PM (#621971) Homepage

    Just steal Grampa's beta-blockers -- they block beta radiation and are pretty effective against alpha radiation as well.

  • (Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 14 2018, @12:09AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 14 2018, @12:09AM (#622003)

    Not sure how this relates to Potassium Iodide. Potassium Iodide is a prophylactic to reduce exposure to radioactive Iodine. Beat glucan appears to ameliorate some side effects of cancer therapy. My PR center in my brain is writing this, and assuring you that it is out of love to you and every other Soylent News reader. My hidden (elephant) merely wants to assert intellectual superiority to you and everyone else. MichaelDavidCrawford--who am I? Who are you? It looks like your PR center wrote your message. It looks like your elephant wanted to assert intellectual superiority to me and everyone else.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 14 2018, @09:57AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 14 2018, @09:57AM (#622142)

    Sounds plausible:
    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23277319 [nih.gov]

    Young adult swiss albino mice were whole body exposed to gamma radiation. For mouse survival study, BG was administered orally (250μg/kg body wt or 500μg/kg body wt) 15min before or 5min after 8Gy exposure. For other parameters BG was given orally 5min after 4Gy exposure. The radioprotective effect of BG was compared with that of clinically used radioprotective drug amifostine (WR-2721), at 300mg/kg body wt administered intraperitoneally, 30min before irradiation. BG (500μg/kg body wt) produced (66%) mouse survival at 30 days given post irradiation, and 83% survived at 30 days with 300mg/kg body wt of amifostine administered before RT while RT alone produced 100% mortality. BG is not toxic at the radioprotective dose.

    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16117606 [nih.gov]

    Intraperitoneal injection of beta-glucan was shown to greatly delay mortality in mice exposed to whole-body X-ray radiation and tumor growth in tumor-bearing mice.

    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1948647 [nih.gov]

    The effects of glucan on the frequency of micronuclei in polychromatic erythrocytes of A/Ph mouse bone marrow induced by Co60 irradiation were examined. Suppressing effect of three glucan derivatives was statistically significant (P less than 0.01) by intravenous application of glucan one hour after irradiation. The most expressive effect was obvious by K3 substituent (DS 0.89). Intraperitoneal application of glucan has to be done earlier than one hour after irradiation.

    See also: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4202472/ [nih.gov]