Congenital iodine deficiency syndrome those areas without outside food sources are most at risk of iodine deficiency diseases. Iodine deficiency results in the impairments in varying degrees of physical and mental development. It also causes gradual enlargement of the thyroid gland, referred to as a goiter. It is being combated in many countries by public health campaigns of iodine administration. Congenital hypothyroidism can be endemic, genetic, or sporadic. If untreated, it results in mild to severe impairment of both physical and mental growth and development. Poor length growth is apparent as early as the first year of life. Adult stature without treatment ranges from
Isotopes of iodine other form of direct radiation). The protective effect of KI lasts approximately 24 hours, so must be dosed daily until a risk of significant exposure to radioiodines from fission products no longer exists. Iodine-131 (the most common radioiodine contaminant in fallout) also decays relatively rapidly with a half-life of eight days, so that 99.95% of the original radioiodine has vanished after three months. Isotopes of iodine There are 37 known isotopes of iodine (I) from I to I; all undergo radioactive decay except I, which is stable. Iodine is thus a monoisotopic element. Its longest-lived radioactive isotope, I, has a