Potassium iodide supplies sold out in the US

As Japan scrambles to contain a possible nuclear disaster, 5,000 miles away on the Pacific west coast Americans are busily doing what they do best – panicking. The three US government-approved suppliers of potassium iodide, a drug used as a protection against radiation sickness, have all sold out after a run on stocks from anxious west coasters fearful that the nuclear discharge from Japan was heading towards them. So intense was the rush that one of the suppliers, Anbex Inc, had been cleaned out of its 10,000 packets of 14 tablets within 24 hours of the Japanese earthquake. The fact that only minuscule amounts of radiation have been detected on the American west coast, and that potassium iodide can have serious side-effects, has done nothing to dissuade the hoarders. According to MSNBC, about a fifth of doctors in the west coast states of California, Oregon and Washington have had to deal with questions from anxious members of the public worried that they are in danger from the nuclear drama unfolding across the Pacific. A trickle of cases has also been reported of people suffering adverse reactions to the drug. Potassium iodide has some potential benefits as protection against the immediate impact of radiation. In particular, it helps avoid cancer in the thyroid by blocking radioactive iodine from the gland. But it only works in the short term and is not a preventive treatment, as many of the west coast hoarders seem to think. And it can also cause allergic reactions, stomach upsets and swellings. President Barack Obama himself has had to wade into the issue, attempting to cool the overheated brows of his western compatriots. "I've been assured," he said, "that any nuclear release dissipates by the time it gets even to Hawaii, much less to the mainland of the United States."