The Netherlands
In the Netherlands, the central storage of iodine-pills is located in Zoetermeer, near The Hague. In 2017, the Dutch government distributed pills to hundreds of thousands of residents who lived within a certain distance of nuclear power plants and met some other criteria. Belgium
By 2020, potassium iodide tablets are made available free of charge for all residents in all pharmacies throughout the country. Formulations
Three companies (Anbex, Inc., Fleming Co, and Recipharm of Sweden) have met the strict FDA requirements for manufacturing and testing of KI, and they offer products (IOSAT, ThyroShield, and ThyroSafe, respectively) which are available for purchase. In 2012, Fleming Co. sold all its product rights and manufacturing facility to other companies and no longer exists. ThyroShield is currently not in production. The Swedish manufacturing facility for Thyrosafe, a half-strength potassium iodide tablet for thyroid protection from radiation, was mentioned on the secret US 2008 Critical Foreign Dependencies Initiative leaked by Wikileaks in 2010.Tablets of potassium iodide are supplied for emergency purposes related to blockade of radioiodine uptake, a common form of radiation poisoning due to environmental contamination by the short-lived fission product 131I. Potassium iodide may also be administered pharmaceutically for thyroid storm. For reasons noted above, therapeutic drops of SSKI, or 130 mg tablets of KI as used for nuclear fission accidents, are not used as nutritional supplements, since an SSKI drop or nuclear-emergency tablet provides 300 to 700 times more iodine than the daily adult nutritional requirement.
Air will oxidize iodide, as evidenced by the observation of a purple extract when aged samples of KI are rinsed with dichloromethane. As formed under acidic conditions, hydriodic acid (HI) is a stronger reducing agent.Like other iodide salts, KI forms triiodide (I−3) when combined with elemental iodine.