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Belgium Government set to hand iodine pills to every person in the country

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The iodine initiative is a response to terrorist threats to nuclear facilities and a possible Fukushima style disaster.

 Nuclear power plant against susnset

 

The government’s health minister urged the Belgian government to issue pills to everyone within a 100km radius of the country’s nuclear power plants. The pills are said to help limit the effect of radiation on the body and are currently distributed to every Belgian within a 20km radius. The new move would mean in effect, the entire country would be covered.

It is widely assumed the measures are a response to the Fukushima disaster and its polluting impact on its surrounding environs. But in recent months the terror threat posed by ISIS has also come to the forefront of peoples minds. In particular, there have been reports the group have been looking to build a ‘dirty’ nuclear bomb. And recently suspects linked to the Paris attacks were spotted monitoring a senior Belgian nuclear official.

Some will say Belgium is adopting a sticking plaster approach to the issue. Germany has already raised concerns over their nuclear facilities, and earlier in the year called for their reactors to be shut down. Belgium flatly refused the request, saying everything is safe from the nuclear standpoint. This came after they had already shut down two reactors when cracks and defects had been discovered in their pressure walls.

Whatever the rights and wrongs of the iodine plan, the iodine itself has limited effectiveness anyway when a nuclear event occurs. Past disasters at Fukushima and Chernobyl have shown that radiation causes a hugely powerful adverse effect. Health wise it is known to cause cancer and leukemia, but it also has a major negative impact on the environment. Land and water in the surroundings become contaminated which effectively wipes out ecosystems in the affected areas.

For further information on what to do in a national emergency, visit our emergency page


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