Following the Russian attack on Ukraine and Putin’s threat to use nuclear weapons, fear of nuclear war has led to a significant increase in sales of iodine tablets in Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. Over the past week, pharmacies across the country have been more busy selling iodine tablets than usual.
“We have gone from selling two or three units a day to 40 units,” said Mag Duschnik, an official at the Matas supermarket chain. The product sold out on the Matas website’s online store, and more than 600 boxes of iodine tablets were sold on Sunday alone on the Helsebixen.dk online store.
Not only in Denmark
In Norway, our northern neighbor, many pharmacy customers are also buying tablets, which has led the famous pharmacy chain Apotek 1 to decide to allow each customer only one box and then put them on a waiting list.
What are iodine tablets?
Iodine is an element that is part of a hormone in the thyroid gland. In the event of a nuclear accident, radioactive iodine can spread through the air and be absorbed by the body, which may have harmful side effects such as cancer. High-dose iodine tablets can prevent the absorption of radioactive iodine in the thyroid gland, thus limiting the damage that radioactive iodine can cause.
(Source: Vitusapotek)
At Helsebixen.dk, iodine tablets now make up 10% of the total turnover. In addition to the increase in sales during the past week, the turnover of men as customers has also changed. A week ago, women made up 90% of the company's customers, but the purchase of iodine tablets attracted more men to buy from the Helsebixen.dk website until they now make up 50% of the company's consumers.
