With news headlines dominated by problems at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, it may be an opportunity to better understand how radiation exposure can be mitigated. While there are many effects on the body from radioactive particles, a key form of fatal exposure involves contracting thyroid cancer. This can occur because the thyroid gland naturally absorbs harmful radioactive iodine, an important byproduct of nuclear materials, when exposure occurs. Absorption can be limited, however, by avoiding contaminated foods and immediately flooding the thyroid with iodine, via low-cost potassium iodide tablets. Learn more about this technique at Radiation Precautions.
HumanaNatura 
This helps to explain why the natural environment rebounded so quickly around the Chernobyl site, since plants do not have this vulnerability and unaffected animals quickly migrated in to fill the space left by less fortunate members of their species…
Apparently word is out or folks remember this from the old cold war days…Run On Iodide