Word: potassium
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Particularly chilling was the additional discovery of 9 lbs. of a cyanide-based chemical substance, which sparked fears that Rome's water system, which runs beneath the embassy, was the target of a terrorist attack. Upon further investigation, however, authorities learned that the chemical appeared to be potassium ferrocyanide, which is not lethal when diluted in water. It is, however, easily ignited with gunpowder, and suspicion shifted to the possibility that four other Moroccans arrested near Rome last week were planning a chemical attack on the subway or other enclosed spaces...
Rome's chief prosecutor Salvatore Vecchione said the substance appeared to be potassium ferrocyanide, a chemical commonly used in gardening and textile dyeing. According to Aldo Lagana, a professor of analytic chemistry at Rome's La Sapienza University, the substance is not lethal when diluted in water. Lagana noted, however, that potassium ferrocyanide can easily be ignited by ordinary gunpowder. "If you burn it in a closed environment," he says, "you can have a very serious situation." The arrested men might have had an attack of this sort - in a subway, perhaps - in mind...
...event of nuclear exchange: go underground, get out of town or at least run upwind. In the years since Chernobyl and Three Mile Island--and the months since Sept. 11--the advice has got a good deal more sophisticated. The safety measure generating the most buzz lately is potassium iodide--a widely available pill that, so the stories go, can help prevent people exposed to radioactivity from developing cancer. The stories are true--up to a point...
Nuclear detonations release a hail of charged particles, common among them radioactive iodine. This is bad news for the human thyroid, which soaks up iodine like a sponge. One way to prevent the problem is to dose the body with potassium iodide, which saturates the gland and prevents the nastier form of the stuff from being absorbed. It's simple--but of limited value. First, little if any iodine is given off by a so-called dirty bomb--radioactive waste wrapped around a conventional explosive--which is the device a terrorist would be most likely to manage. Second, even...
Nonetheless, potassium iodide has had its successes. Following Chernobyl, which released a giant plume of radiation, the Polish government distributed tablets to the population, while neighboring Belarus didn't. Fifteen years later, the incidence of thyroid cancer has not changed in Poland, while it has jumped an alarming 100-fold among some Belarussian children. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission is now giving states the option of stocking up on potassium iodide for communities near the nation's 103 nuclear power plants. Still, the NRC emphasizes that the drug is not the next Cipro. Says NRC spokesman William Beecher...