No argument here. Just saying in a disaster, I'll put my faith in modern medicine first.

Potassium iodide can be bought through countless stores on the interweb. I have no clue for local shops. I know here in the US some pharmacies will sell it sometimes. Just do your best to make sure the place you buy from is legit. Don't want to be popping aspirin when the mushrooms sprout.

I've never heard of using potassium permanganate to treat for radiation exposure. I'm reading about it here and I actually think that would be a very bad thing to take. At all.

Originally posted by morganathefey
how does one get anti radiation tablets and potassium permanganade in the uk?

P.Permanganate should still be able to be bought over the counter at pharmacies in small jars of crystals, just make sure that you mention to the person at the counter that you are putting an 'outdoor survival kit' together and its to be used for water-purifying and first aid to put their mind at rest

thank you semper and citizen smith you have both been awfully helpfull, cheers
m x

Nasturtians are brilliant for a sore throat or when you start getting that "I'm getting a cold" feeling. They taste quite peppery and both the leaves and flowers are edible - flowers make a great addition to a salad!


[edit on 19-12-2007 by LovingSoul]

Originally posted by SemperParatus
A while back I watched a documentary about the Chernobyl disaster and what all they went through trying to cap it off. At one point early in the cleanup they said they flew over in helicoptors dropping a mixture of sand and boric acid to neutralize the radiation. At this point I'm not buying into that but I do wonder where the logic comes from. Anybody know?

Semper Paratus,

At Chernobyl they were trying to put anything they could get in the early days on top the pile or what was left of the pile. Anything to act as some kind of shielding...anything. Most of the nuclear pile was regurgitated in the surrounding area. The storys I got in a class on nuclear principles was that the reactor went from very low power ...to some 1500 percent in like four seconds..causing the explosion and regurgitation of the insides out. There was so much radioactive and contaminated material spewed out by the overpressurization they tried despirately in the early days to put anything they could over it and as quickly as they could over the site. This is also part of what is causing the unstabilazation of the sarcofigus built over the site. The inside stuff is settling.

Those folks in the helicopters were getting huge doses flying over the top of the site. They were like... hovering on top of a very power x-ray machine. There were people on the ground going in and moving or shoving this radioactive material to the side and getting more than lifetime doses in one trip in and out.

I believe most of or all the helicopter pilots died quickly from huge doses.
Not something wont to make big news...but so many of them made repeated trips to dump sand and other materials over the regurgitated site.

Well you get the picture. No one had ever had such a huge and tragic nuclear accident and they obviously had no equipment in place nor materials pre staged either to cope with this. Also obviously no one had written a proceedure to handle such a catastrophy.

It is a very intresting video documentary account of what happened in the control room before the pile exploded in this graphite type reactor.

Thanks,
Orangetom