As part of the government’s new nuclear safety policy, as of today, every Belgian citizen can come to a pharmacy and get free iodine pills.

Belgium has two nuclear plants, Tihange and Doel, with a total number of seven reactors, and is one of the world’s most nuclear-reliant nations…

In 2017 alone, there were seven incidents at the facilities.

Free distribution of iodine tablets has started in Belgium as a precautionary measure in the event of a nuclear catastrophe, the Belgian Pharmaceutical Association told Sputnik on Tuesday. Before March 6, only those living within 20 kilometers (12 miles) from nuclear sites were entitled to receive the medication free of charge.

As SputnikNews reports, Belgium’s neighbors, Germany and the Netherlands, are concerned over the safety of the kingdom’s ageing nuclear reactors.

In 2016, Germany requested Belgium to shut down its two reactors because of defects found in their pressure vessels, but the kingdom refused. In September 2017, citizens of Aachen, a western German city located 70 kilometers (43 miles) away from the Belgian Tihange, started getting free iodine tablets.

In 2016, the Netherlands started distributing the pills to people who lived within a 100-kilometre (62-mile) radius of the neighboring Dutch Borsselle and Belgian Doel plants.

So how would a population react to their government offering iodine pills – just in case… Fear, of course!

Scared people are not rational, they’ll buy virtually anything that promises to alleviate their fear. Every totalitarian, every proponent of curtailing freedom, knows this. It’s the equivalent of the smoking hot babe: fear sells government.

“Not reassuring”

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