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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.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Sunday January 14 2018, @12:39AM (4 children)
If you're that close to a nuclear detonation, you almost definitely aren't surviving, and if you do it's most likely going to be the result of sheer luck. It's as simple as that. Even the relatively primitive Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs killed most of those that close, if not from the initial blast then from the radiation.
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(Score: 3, Informative) by JoeMerchant on Sunday January 14 2018, @01:23AM (2 children)
From descriptions like these: http://www.atomicarchive.com/Docs/MED/med_chp3.shtml [atomicarchive.com] it seems like 5 miles is in the questionable range, not that I'd want to be there, but just far enough that you're not guaranteed dead.
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(Score: 1) by toddestan on Sunday January 14 2018, @04:59PM (1 child)
Keep in mind those are air bursts. If it's snuck in a cargo ship, it's basically a ground burst - and quite possibly end up going off below the waterline. I would say at 4-5 miles your chance of surviving are going to be pretty good. Once you see the flash (hopefully you aren't unlucky enough to be looking directly at it when it goes off) you've got about 4-5 seconds to take shelter behind something because the most immediate danger will be the shards of glass flying at you. After that the next most immediate danger is from everyone else panicking.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Sunday January 14 2018, @06:17PM
From what I've read I've assumed that a blast slightly below the surface of the water in a bay is worse than an air blast. You get a bunch of radioactive mud in the air AND you get a small tsunami. And steam explosions don't muffle the blast at that temperature, not unless you've got LOTS of water, as in out in the open ocean. I haven't read anything about an isolated blast slightly below sea level on an ocean facing port, but most ports act to sequester the water to prevent problems with docked ships during storms, so my first guess is it would be about the same as a small bay.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 14 2018, @11:15PM
The building code requires that all residential housing has a shelter that can withstand a 12 megaton weapon at 700 meters.
That is about 0.44 miles or 2310 feet.
Modern nuclear weapons are normally much smaller. The 12 megaton ones were used back when guidance systems were more primitive.