Mélina Facchin 06:31, March 04, 2022

Since the start of the war in Ukraine, French pharmacies have made a surprising observation: more and more customers, who are particularly worried, are trying to obtain iodine capsules, a preventive medicine that protects the thyroid in the event of an accident or of nuclear attack. 

With the war in Ukraine and the nuclear threat launched half-word by Russia, some French people are beginning to worry, even bordering on paranoia.

They go to their pharmacy to try to get iodine capsules, a drug that protects the thyroid in the event of an accident or nuclear attack.

But pharmacists, if indeed they have any, do not have the right to dispense it so easily! 

Three or four requests a day: "That's way more than usual!"

For the past few days, Ife has been touring pharmacies in Strasbourg in the hope of finding iodine capsules.

"Now we know that there may be a war," explains the young woman.

"It's necessary to have things like this at home," she adds, laughing nervously. 

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Like her, more and more people are panicking.

This is what almost all the pharmacists in the city notice, like Marine: “Friday, the first day, we must have had three or four requests, which is already much more than usual”, explains the pharmacist.

"Normally, it's not at all something that is asked regularly and even less by several people in one day!", She continues, a little incredulous. 

Prohibited from dispensing iodine capsules, "unless ordered"

In this other pharmacy, Lisa has a few boxes of iodine capsules in reserve: "These are army stocks", she specifies.

"It looks like classic tablets, which are swallowed".

But there is no question of buying iodine like you would take Doliprane!

The pharmacist does not have the right to deliver them to her customers: "Unless counterordered from above", she explains.

"If they ever think the threat is imminent, that's when it will be decided," Lisa concludes.

Currently, the only people allowed to obtain an iodine capsule are those who live within twenty kilometers of a nuclear power plant.

This represents just over 2 million French people.

And the vast majority of them already have them since distribution campaigns have been taking place regularly for 25 years.