The Worst-case Scenario

January 30, 2006 6:34 PM

CBS' 60 Minutes asks: "Hundreds of thousand of people could die in a nuclear attack, but hundreds of thousands of others could be saved. That’s because the Pentagon — after decades of searching — believes it has found a drug to treat radiation exposure. Why isn’t that drug available? "
posted by lupus_yonderboy (41 comments total)

because they're going to let a bunch of people die in a nuclear "Terrorist Attack" in order to create the proper environment to install Bush as a temporary dictator?
posted by wakko at 6:38 PM on January 30, 2006

(i mean, that is one possibility!)
posted by wakko at 6:39 PM on January 30, 2006

Why would the Pentagon want a temporary dictator?
posted by Lord Chancellor at 6:42 PM on January 30, 2006

the pentagon hasn't been under its own control for years.
posted by wakko at 6:42 PM on January 30, 2006

Bush is already a temporary dictator. I'm pretty sure he wants to be permanent.
posted by JekPorkins at 6:43 PM on January 30, 2006

Speaking of which, did anyone notice that Al Qaeda explicitly promised a terrorist attack Real Soon Now -- and yet there doesn't seem to have been a corresponding increase in the "threat level" or any particular security measures taken?

Now, my reading of these scumbags is that they are serious about it, that their offer of a "truce" was just to give them a justification for the horrible deed they are about to perform.

Let us hope that the survivors ask the really hard questions...
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 6:45 PM on January 30, 2006

Because what the Pentagon believes and reality have been in disconnect for decades.
posted by juiceCake at 6:45 PM on January 30, 2006

probably because it only prevents a single type of cancer, and probaly has a bunch of side-effects which would end up killing more people then it saved.
posted by delmoi at 6:47 PM on January 30, 2006

Epithemeus runs the show now.
posted by FormlessOne at 6:48 PM on January 30, 2006

They'll release it as soon as they figure out a way to keep it away from liberals.

And then, "Oopsie!"
posted by JWright at 6:49 PM on January 30, 2006

Let us hope that the survivors ask the really hard questions...

They asked those questions after 9/11, too! The government had plenty of warning then, too. Whether they simply fucked up, or whether they saw opportunity and allowed those events to unfold makes for an interesting (if tinfoily) discussion.
posted by wakko at 6:49 PM on January 30, 2006

First, anti-radiation treatments are not known for their mildness. Second, more testing/development/whatever is definitely warranted, precisely because such a drug would be an ace in the hole—even if it only prevents one or two types of cancer, as delmoi says.
posted by jenovus at 6:51 PM on January 30, 2006

According to the linked article, the Pentagon is all in favor of the drug being made available, and the holdup is the fault of some dingbat in the Department of Health & Human Services. In fact, said dingbat actually proposed that people bleeding to death from radiation exposure oughta just go to the hospital already (paraphrased. Slightly).
posted by Gator at 6:53 PM on January 30, 2006

The pharmaceutical company's page about the drug in question. Interesting reading about Acute Radiation Syndrome there, too.
posted by Gator at 7:03 PM on January 30, 2006

Isn't saying you have a drug that "treats" radiation poisoning like saying you have a drug to that "treats" amputated legs?

Radiation "poisoning" is really radiation tissue damage, like getting burned, only at the cellular level. Cells are physically damaged so that they either cannot replicate, or they replicate poorly by transcribing damaged DNA, causing tumors.
posted by odinsdream at 7:05 PM on January 30, 2006

Let us hope that the survivors of the next "terror attack" ask the really hard questions that weren't properly asked or answered regarding 9/11.
posted by stenseng at 7:08 PM on January 30, 2006

So, this drug wouldn't prevent "The Omega Man" syndrome? Well, screw it then.
posted by graventy at 7:13 PM on January 30, 2006

Yeah! Why is the government trying to "save me" from all these awesome super-power giving radiation goodness?
I bet it's a conspiracy!
posted by Balisong at 7:22 PM on January 30, 2006

While I sympathize with the company, their analogy is weak. The gov't does order one plane/tank/uav first, often from competing companies, before deciding if it's worth buying thousands of them. What's stopping these guys from pushing the drug the normal way?
posted by furtive at 7:33 PM on January 30, 2006

Read the article - the drug helps prevent the internal bleeding and infection that kills radiation-burned people. It doesn't treat cancer, nor the radiation damage itself, just helps you survive it. In theory. :)
posted by -harlequin- at 7:35 PM on January 30, 2006

So it's a coagulant and antibiotic...?
posted by odinsdream at 7:42 PM on January 30, 2006

(From memory, radiation poisoning is where the amount of dead cellular material throughout your body is so massive that your body can't get rid of enough of it before things start getting septic)
posted by -harlequin- at 7:42 PM on January 30, 2006

For those wondering, Radiation Sickness, with effect at various exposures.

Judging by the control mortality (32.5%) and the treated mortality (12.5%), we're looking at reducing the effects of 2.5Sv exposure to that of a 1.5Sv dose.

That's pretty significant. However, I'm willing to be that's also assuming pretty good supportive care -- a assumption that you just cannot make in the case of a nuclear weapon attack on a city (but could in other nuclear accidents.)

I note that there's a distinct lack of full information -- what side effects, for example. I suspect part of this is that the drug is very new, another part is human trials will be basically impossible to fully conduct.
posted by eriko at 7:47 PM on January 30, 2006

I just don't know what to expect. Should we fill the basement with water and chicken noodle soup or spend the money on geiger counters and iodine tablets?
posted by longsleeves at 7:53 PM on January 30, 2006

Also on last night's 60 Minutes: Accident victim Richard Paey spent years battling chronic pain with powerful prescription painkillers. Morley Safer reports how Paey's quest for pain relief eventually landed him behind bars.
posted by homunculus at 8:02 PM on January 30, 2006

Should we fill the basement with water and chicken noodle soup

According to South Park, all you need is Campbell's Chicken Noodle Soup, Dayquil, and Sprite.
posted by mrbill at 8:04 PM on January 30, 2006

:9
posted by wakko at 8:32 PM on January 30, 2006

These stories and Andy Rooney tonight, on 60MinutesFilter.
posted by fandango_matt at 9:02 PM on January 30, 2006

In case anyone else thinks that the Paey story is important, here's the obligatory link to the Right-Wing-Thinktank-Republican-Shill-Cato interview.
posted by Kwantsar at 9:19 PM on January 30, 2006

Now if big pharma also comes up with a morning-after to reverse the effects of nuclear thermal radiation,

somebody just might decide to try it once more for old times' sake.
posted by cenoxo at 9:28 PM on January 30, 2006

This is really a bizarre story. It's clear that this drug company is talking to 60 Minutes because they want that government contract, so I have to put a big question mark over their assertions regarding its efficacy. The HHS agency is clearly taking a more cautious approach, but we don't have anything other than outsider's assessments as to why, and those are given a cast of incompetence.

Now, I'm perfectly willing to believe an incompetence narrative where the Bush adminisration is concerned, but I'd rather have had information from the inside of the HHS decision process indicating why they felt comfortable leading this company along a garden path and then pulled a change-up on them.

That suggests to me something else is going on. On the wild side, perhaps an INSLAW-like scam where they turn the patents over to a big GOP donor with a custom-concocted firm. On the more reasonable side, perhaps some troubling results from their efficacy studies. Maybe somewhere in the middle.

Ultimately, of course, the non-transparency of the Bush administration is causing all sorts of speculation, and that should be the real story.
posted by dhartung at 10:03 PM on January 30, 2006

Read the CO's page, still not sure what the heck this stuff is. They don't really say.

Is it a cytokine? A small molecule?
posted by NucleophilicAttack at 10:11 PM on January 30, 2006

Data point: Radiation sickness is not the primary killer in a nuclear attack:

In the Hiroshima attack (bomb yield approx. 15 kt) casualties (including fatalities) were seen from all three causes [burn, blast, and radiation effects]. Burns (including those caused by the ensuing fire storm) were the most prevalent serious injury (two thirds of those who died the first day were burned), and occurred at the greatest range. Blast and burn injuries were both found in 60-70% of all survivors. People close enough to suffer significant radiation illness were well inside the lethal effects radius for blast and flash burns, as a result only 30% of injured survivors showed radiation illness. Many of these people were sheltered from burns and blast and thus escaped their main effects. Even so, most victims with radiation illness also had blast injuries or burns as well.

With yields in the range of hundreds of kilotons or greater (typical for strategic warheads) immediate radiation injury becomes insignificant. Dangerous radiation levels only exist so close to the explosion that surviving the blast is impossible. On the other hand, fatal burns can be inflicted well beyond the range of substantial blast damage. A 20 megaton bomb can cause potentially fatal third degree burns at a range of 40 km, where the blast can do little more than break windows and cause superficial cuts.

I'm not saying that more effective treatments for radiation sickness wouldn't be helpful. I'm just pointing out that CBS makes it sound like an equal number of people would be killed by radiation as by the primary blast effects, which is not the case.
posted by moonbiter at 10:21 PM on January 30, 2006

This drug is still in stage 1 clinical trials.

To give this some context: there have been 742 clinical trials of various gene therapy treatments carried out over the years in the U.S.. Some have made it to stage 2 and some to stage 3. None has led to an FDA approval.
posted by shoos at 11:49 PM on January 30, 2006

"We are rapidly approaching a moment of truth both for ourselves as human beings and for the life of our nation. Now, truth is not always a pleasant thing. But it is necessary now to make a choice, to choose between two admittedly regrettable, but nevertheless distinguishable, postwar environments: one where you got twenty million people killed, and the other where you got a hundred and fifty million people killed."
posted by ed at 6:46 AM on January 31, 2006

A better quote might have been:

"Perhaps it might be better, Mr. President, if you were more concerned with the American people, than with your image in the history books."
posted by furtive at 6:59 AM on January 31, 2006

The real conspiracy here is the wave of single-link FPP's lately.
posted by mrblondemang at 12:02 PM on January 31, 2006

Good link moonbiter. Thanks for adding some light to the thread.
posted by storybored at 12:34 PM on January 31, 2006

"Hundreds of thousand of people could die in a nuclear attack from poor dental hygeine, but hundreds of thousands of others could be saved with comparatively small investments in toothpaste, toothbrushes, and dental floss."

Also true.
posted by troutfishing at 1:19 PM on January 31, 2006

living in nyc this story freaks me out. makes me want to move to someplace like syracuse or columbus ohio. but i freaking love this place.

i agree with pretty much all of what dhartung said:

It's clear that this drug company is talking to 60 Minutes because they want that government contract, so I have to put a big question mark over their assertions regarding its efficacy

I'm perfectly willing to believe an incompetence narrative where the Bush adminisration is concerned, but I'd rather have had information from the inside of the HHS decision process indicating why they felt comfortable leading this company along a garden path and then pulled a change-up on them
posted by hpsell at 1:31 PM on January 31, 2006

I tried to find out what this stuff is, but I couldn't find any concrete information on it. It -may- be what the company calls an "immune-regulating hormone", a vague term. From the study data this is presented on their website, I infer that Neumune is probably an agent that stimulates production of the various types of blood cells, kinda like G-CSF, etc. Thus, it doesn't affect the radiation damage directly, but rather helps the body's response to the damage.
posted by neuron at 10:08 PM on January 31, 2006