Paul,  The article I mentioned above discussed Iodine-131. This isotope has "only" about an 8 day half life and decays rapidly. It is used in some medical treatments.  Iodine 129 however has a half life of several million years from what I read and while not as immediately dangerous as Iodine 131, 129 can have long term effects, though difficult to prove with a half life like that when it is "safe".

I think the problem with the news reports is that ratherr than be intentionally misleading we are just in a situation where no one is quite sure of the effects since this type of meltdown has not really happened before. Chernobyl is probably the closest thing to it and that area has been basically uninhabitable for years.

In Japan, this is 6 reactors in a fairly densely populated area on the sea coast with coastal winds where as Chernobyl was interior Russia....

Jim at Dawn