Radioactive contamination
Some organs concentrate certain elements and hence radionuclide variants of those elements. This action may lead to much lower removal rates. For instance, the thyroid gland takes up a large percentage of any iodine that enters the body. Large quantities of inhaled or ingested radioactive iodine may impair or destroy the thyroid, while other tissues are affected to a lesser extent. Radioactive iodine-131 is a common fission product; it was a major component of the radioactivity released from the Chernobyl disaster, leading to nine fatal cases of pediatric thyroid cancer and hypothyroidism. On the other hand, radioactive iodine is used in the diagnosis and treatment of many diseases of the thyroid precisely because of the thyroid's selective uptake of iodine.
Iodine
Iodine oxides are the most stable of all the halogen oxides, because of the strong I–O bonds resulting from the large electronegativity difference between iodine and oxygen, and they have been known for the longest time. The stable, white, hygroscopic iodine pentoxide (IO) has been known since its formation in 1813 by Gay-Lussac and Davy. It is most easily made by the dehydration of iodic acid (HIO), of which it is the anhydride. It will quickly oxidise carbon monoxide completely to carbon dioxide at room temperature, and is thus a useful reagent in determining carbon monoxide concentration. It also oxidises nitrogen oxide, ethylene, and hydrogen sulfide. It reacts with sulfur trioxide and peroxydisulfuryl difluoride (SOF) to form salts of the iodyl cation, [IO], and is reduced by concentrated sulfuric acids to iodosyl salts involving [IO]. It may be fluorinated by fluorine, bromine trifluoride, sulfur tetrafluoride, or chloryl fluoride, resulting iodine pentafluoride, which also reacts with iodine pentoxide, giving iodine(V) oxyfluoride, IOF. A few other less stable oxides are known, notably IO and IO; their structures have not been determined, but reasonable guesses are I(IO) and [IO][IO] respectively.
More important are the four oxoacids: hypoiodous acid (HIO), iodous acid (HIO), iodic acid (HIO), and periodic acid (HIO or HIO). When iodine dissolves in aqueous solution, the following reactions occur: