I don't have much faith of any country doing a good job at this.<p>Canada built up federal and provincial stockpiles of N95s after SARS1 (2003), and destroyed those N95s without replenishing them once they expired...<p>(and if it's not obvious, didn't rotate stock to avoid expiration entirely)<p><a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/heath-minister-emergency-stockpile-1.5530081" rel="nofollow">https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/heath-minister-e...</a><p><a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-canada-supplies-ex-idUSKBN20W2OG" rel="nofollow">https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-canada...</a><p>I live close enough to a nuclear plant to have government-provided iodine tablets on-hand, but nobody's given me free N95s to... you know, not breathe in radioactive dust.
How on earth do they expect typical governments to distribute hundreds of thousands of doses of things which are recommended to be administered within <24h? This document seems... aspirational.<p>Also, how do you reconcile "shelter in place" with "seek prophylactic medical care"? They're pure contradictions. If you're exposed to unknown fallout, do you run outdoors again right away to find chelators, or do you delay that and risk irreversible damage?<p>Maybe the most reasonable thing would be to distribute most of these things to households in advance. Like the way they distribute KI near nuclear power plants, except to everyone.
Components of a pharmaceutical stockpile for radiation emergencies
This publication focuses on pharmaceuticals for treating radiation exposure and addresses the governance and management of such a stockpile. A typical radiation emergency stockpile will include the following medicines:<p>Stable iodine, administered to prevent or reduce the exposure of the thyroid to radioactive iodine;<p>Chelating sand decorporating agents (Prussian blue, applied to remove radioactive caesium from the body and calcium- / zinc-DTPA used to treat internal contamination with transuranium radionuclides);<p>Cytokines used for mitigation of damage to the bone marrow, in case of acute radiation syndrome (ARS); and<p>Other medicines used to treat vomiting, diarrhoea and infections.
I keep some random amazon iodine on hand since the cost/potential benefit seems favourable on that. Outside of that it doesn't seem like there is much the average person can do without going full prepper
I see one benefit from more people finally realizing that nuclear war might affect them, and be bad.<p>I ain't no hippie, but I really hope this translates into global nuclear disarmament once Russian imperialism is vanquished.<p>Nuclear weapons are as sane a problem solving tool as a suicide pact.
FWIW, the Kremlin's current social media campaign has been recently focusing on encouraging fear of nuclear warfare in the West in response to supplying tanks to Ukraine. I've seen a number of posts across several platforms since Tuesday with leading topics that inevitably devolve in threads laundering FUD.
Why are people so cavalier about the prospects of nuclear war these days?<p>Why are discussions about the Ukraine conflict so dishonest?<p>I can list the ways if anybody wants.<p>It truly boggles the mind how easily led people are on false premises.<p>As Goebbles would call it the "Big Lie..."
How much should we trust or care about the WHO critical medicine lists, given that ivermectin is on there too? Seems like a bunch of anti-vaxx nonsense to me.
In Belgium Iodine tablets are freely and for free available in all pharmacies. All you need is show up with an ID (this is to prevent hoarding) They will give you a box with enough doses for 2 adults and 3 children for free.<p>Now if only this system existed for all WHO essential medicines... The covid pandemic would have played out differently...