Trans-Pacific Fallout

If nukes are ever used by any of the warring participants over there, we could soon be in deep trouble over here, too, * even if * in the unlikely event we had managed somehow not to get involved and it all ended as quick as it began.

Few realize that shortly after any nuclear detonation anywhere in the Northern Hemisphere, we in the USA could be having their spent nukes radioactive fallout raining down on us here, too. Especially of concern, according to health physicists, will be plenty of thyroid contaminating radioactive iodine. All courtesy of the prevailing westerly trade winds blowing their nuclear fallout onto our shores a few days after any of them trade nuclear blasts with any of their neighbors.

The book, Nuclear War Survival Skills (by Oak Ridge National Laboratory, 1979, a Facility of the U.S. Department of Energy, Updated and Expanded 1987 Edition) details the above and shows where a single, and very small, above ground Chinese nuclear test explosion ("a few hundred kilotons") on December 28, 1966 resulted in the fallout cloud covering most of the United States.

Cresson H. Kearny, the author of the above book, also states about this now declassifed incident:

"It produced fallout that by January 1, 1967 resulted in the fallout cloud covering most of the United States. This one Chinese explosion produced about 15 million curies of iodine- 131 - roughly the same amount as the total release of iodine- 131 into the atmosphere from the Chernobyl nuclear power plant disaster."

"Fallout from the approximately 300 kiloton Chinese test explosion shown in Fig. 1 caused milk from cows that fed on pastures near Oak Ridge, Tennessee and elsewhere to be contaminated with radioiodine, although not with enough to be hazardous to health."

"However, this milk contamination (up to 900 picocuries of radioactive iodine per liter) and the measured dose rates from the gamma rays emitted from fallout particles deposited in different parts of the United States indicate that trans-Pacific fallout from even an overseas nuclear war in which "only" two or three hundred megatons would be exploded could result in tens of thousands of unprepared Americans suffering thyroid injury."

"Perhaps the first nuclear war casualties in the United States will be caused by fallout from an overseas nuclear war in which our country is not a belligerent. As the number of nations with nuclear weapons increases - especially in the Middle East - this generally unrecognized danger to Americans will worsen."

"Trans-Pacific war fallout, carried to an America at peace by the prevailing west-to-east winds that blow around the world, could be several hundred times more dangerous to Americans than fallout from the worst possible overseas nuclear power reactor accident, and many times more dangerous than fallout from a very improbable U.S. nuclear power reactor accident as lethal as the disastrous Chernobyl accident was to Russians."

Also, commenting on the world health effects a nuclear exchange between India and Pakistan would create, for example, Dr. Henry Kendall of the Union of Concerned Scientists said in October of 1999:

"It would be very similar to Cherynobl. But it could be on a substantially larger scale."

See our review on Potassium Iodide for more details on the health concerns of radioactive iodine, especially to our children.

Bottom Line:

• Most developed nations have already stockpiled KI  tablets to protect their citizens from radioiodine, but the USA has only just begun. (They've been talking about it though for over 20 years! Ever since TMI!)
  
• However, at this time, we can all still get it as a non-prescription for our own personal family protection.
  
• That is, at least, until there's an 'incident' somewhere in the world because after Three Mile Island and Chernobyl all available KI supplies disappeared for months, almost overnight!