Drug Promises Fix for Radiation Poisoning

[tezunegari]

link: http://www.spiegel.de/international/wor ... 81,00.html

Dirty bombs are one of the biggest threats to the world's urban populations. Now an American molecular biologist has developed a drug that
may protect against the effects of radioactivity. Military officials are thrilled, and the discoverers could make billions.

On Friday afternoons, as the Sabbath approaches and the sun hangs low in the sky over the Mediterranean, the Restaurant Turquoise north of
Tel Aviv is a carefree oasis. Every seat in the place is taken, and the crowd is in high spirits.

Only one patron, Yacov Reizman, seems serious as he glances at a stack of documents -- a study recently published by the United States
Department of Homeland Security -- on the table in front of him. Using a hypothetical scenario, the study describes the medical consequences
of a terrorist attack involving a radioactive bomb in a major American city. It concludes that tens of thousands would be killed immediately,
while hundreds of thousands more would sustain fatal injuries through the resulting radioactive fallout.

The results would be even more dramatic, says Reizman, in a small country like Israel, where practically the entire population would be
affected within only a few hours.

But Reizman, a former fighter pilot in the Israeli air force, claims to have a miracle weapon against such nuclear catastrophes. He has invested
in Cleveland Biolabs, a Nasdaq company that has developed a drug that is designed to protect people against the often deadly consequences
of nuclear radiation.

According to Reizman, a simple injection is all it takes. A few days ago, the New York businessman returned to his native country to present
his invention to Israeli security officials.

Until now, doctors have felt largely helpless when it comes to treating so-called radiation sickness. Ionizing radiation destroys the building
blocks of cells, leading directly to cell death. It can also produce changes in genetic material, which are passed on during subsequent cell
division, contributing to the development of cancers. Medicine has offered virtually no protection against nuclear radiation until now, except in
the form of iodine tablets, which merely prevent radioactive iodine from accumulating in the thyroid gland.

The effects of CBLB502, discovered by the American molecular geneticist Andrei Gudkov, are believed to be far more comprehensive. The
agent consists of a protein derived from salmonella bacteria. The bacterial protein attaches itself to the receptor on a radiation-damaged cell,
which would normally activate the immune system.

This in turn inhibits the damaged cell's suicide program, known as apoptosis, which would normally be activated to prevent the damaged cell
from harming the rest of the body. The inhibition of apoptosis gives the cell time to initiate repair mechanisms, the same trick a tumor cell uses
to survive in the human body despite its pathological mutation.

Approval in Two Years' Time

Gudkov successfully tested the drug in mice and rhesus monkeys, and he has already published the results in the American scientific journal
Science. The monkeys were exposed to doses of radiation comparable to the levels people were exposed to after the 1986 Chernobyl reactor
disaster. In the experiment, 70 percent of the monkeys that were not given the drug died. But of those that were treated before radiation
exposure, more than 60 percent survived. The drug was even successful when it was injected 72 hours after radiation exposure.

This would make it particularly well-suited for use after radioactive attacks and accidents. Western intelligence agencies have long warned of
the dangers of a "dirty" bomb, that is, an explosive device containing radioactive material. To address the threat, the Pentagon and US health
authorities have already invested $40 million (€28 million) in the development of the anti-radiation drug.

CBLB502 could also be used in cancer therapy, because it would enable tumor patients to cope more easily with radiation treatment. This, in
turn, would increase the efficacy of treatment in severe cases.

Approval of the drug is expected in the United States in two years' time. Meanwhile, radiation experts in Germany are also keeping a close eye
on testing. A spokesman for the Federal Institute for Drugs and Medical Devices calls it a "completely new approach," but adds that the drug
must first be tested in human subjects before it can be considered for approval in Germany. In fact, no one knows the extent to which the
results from the monkey experiments are transferable.

Reizman and his business partners want to see countries like the United States and Israel establish adequate stockpiles for their populations.
They expect the drug to generate annual sales of up to $500 million worldwide.

Cleveland Biolabs expects to sell 2 million doses to the US military alone.

Anyone else getting a TNG flash here?

[FireNexus]

Wouldn't this just be delaying the inevitable? The cells initiate apoptosis for a reason, after all. Most likely this just means instead of dying from radiation poisoning today, you die from multiple cancers within a couple of years. I'd certainly like to have the couple of years, but I'd hardly call this a clear win.

[Serafina]

Wouldn't this just be delaying the inevitable? The cells initiate apoptosis for a reason, after all. Most likely this just means instead of dying from radiation poisoning today, you die from multiple cancers within a couple of years. I'd certainly like to have the couple of years, but I'd hardly call this a clear win.

Well, it obviously is not "get out of radiation for free"-card like in ST - but if the described effects are genuine (Spiegel is normally not making too much shit up), it certainly would be usefull.

The actual survival rates would propably go up - you could survive a larger dose of radiation before getting into the lethal zone. Obviously, a high dosis of radiation would still kill you, and propably just as quick.

[Nephtys]

'tens of thousands' killed immediately by a 'dirty bomb'? Hundreds of thousands through 'radioactive fallout'?

This article is full of bullshit.

It's clearly talking about an actual nuclear bomb, not a dirty bomb. And radiation is the last thing I worry about. First, comes being crushed by massive overpressure, and the second is burning to death in a firestorm. A drug to reduce my risk of cancer if we get nuked is hardly high on my list of priorities.

[General Zod]

Dirty bombs are one of the biggest threats to the world's urban populations.

A bigger threat than drunk drivers? Really.

[Rahvin]

And radiation is the last thing I worry about. First, comes being crushed by massive overpressure, and the second is burning to death in a firestorm. A drug to reduce my risk of cancer if we get nuked is hardly high on my list of priorities.

Radiation exposure from fallout covers a much larger area of effect than the more immediately destructive results of a nuclear initiation. Unless you live near a high priority target (military or government installations, dense population centers, etc, depending on who's attacking), you'll almost certainly survive the overpressure and firestorm. After all, for most weapons we're talking about a radius of some miles or tens of miles. City centers and military bases will be annihilated, but suburbs and rural areas are more likely to survive that part.

Statistically you're far more likely to die from radiation exposure. Just look at the anticipated death tolls - tens of thousands from the initiation, and hundreds of thousands from exposure to the fallout. Fallout can affect hundreds or thousands of square miles.

Adding in that dying from overpressure or incineration is relatively fast while radiation poisoning is slow and painful, I'd be much more afraid of the fallout.

[Nephtys]

And radiation is the last thing I worry about. First, comes being crushed by massive overpressure, and the second is burning to death in a firestorm. A drug to reduce my risk of cancer if we get nuked is hardly high on my list of priorities.

Radiation exposure from fallout covers a much larger area of effect than the more immediately destructive results of a nuclear initiation. Unless you live near a high priority target (military or government installations, dense population centers, etc, depending on who's attacking), you'll almost certainly survive the overpressure and firestorm. After all, for most weapons we're talking about a radius of some miles or tens of miles. City centers and military bases will be annihilated, but suburbs and rural areas are more likely to survive that part.

Statistically you're far more likely to die from radiation exposure. Just look at the anticipated death tolls - tens of thousands from the initiation, and hundreds of thousands from exposure to the fallout. Fallout can affect hundreds or thousands of square miles.

Adding in that dying from overpressure or incineration is relatively fast while radiation poisoning is slow and painful, I'd be much more afraid of the fallout.

You're missing quantification on any of this. What level of exposure is fallout from a nuclear weapon going to generate? Are you just reading, uncritically the incredible claims of this non-scientific article? It doesn't even know what a Dirty Bomb is (a bunch of cesium sticks glued to dynamite for example).

I think I'm far more likely to die from being crushed by a 20 PSI overpressure wave, or flash-burned by the thermal pulse, if there was a nuke going off. Even a large 1 MT Groundbursted Bomb will take hours to have anything approaching fatal exposure levels build up downwind. This article is talking about it going off in a major city. A vast majority of the area downwind of a large bomb will be in the sub 100-rad exposure range for even the short term, which is bad, but not fatal. I'm sure more people will be affected, but radiation effects on the human body are from a combination of exposure level and time. IT may cause a spike in cancer rates and genetic problems over the next few decades, but that's completely different to what the article is saiyng.

[Drooling Iguana]

How many cities have had significant portions of them destroyed by dirty bombs in the last decade? For comparison, how many cities have had significant portions destroyed by rain in the last decade? I think the bomb threat might be a tad overblown, pun not intended.

[Simon_Jester]

The flip side of that is that we have a pretty good idea of what to do with rain. Water is a mature technology at this point, as are the things like big walls and pumps that we use to deal with them.

We're still trying to figure out how to control damage from a dirty bomb, not least because it's never happened in real life.

So having people monkeying around and trying to invent a preventative that blocks the worst effects of radiation sickness can still be worth the effort even if rain is, objectively, a bigger killer than radiation sickness.

[Nephtys]

The flip side of that is that we have a pretty good idea of what to do with rain. Water is a mature technology at this point, as are the things like big walls and pumps that we use to deal with them.

We're still trying to figure out how to control damage from a dirty bomb, not least because it's never happened in real life.

So having people monkeying around and trying to invent a preventative that blocks the worst effects of radiation sickness can still be worth the effort even if rain is, objectively, a bigger killer than radiation sickness.

That'd have to be a damned big dirty bomb to do jack shit. In which case again, you should be worrying about being blasted by kilos of explosive more. Models made of a man-portable sized dirty bomb with old radioactive components from X-Ray machine construction for example, would have something around a 1-in-1000th increase in the estimated occurance of Cancer in the affected area over the next 30 years.

[Simon_Jester]

Which is why there's never been a serious dirty bomb attack. Readily available radioactive materials aren't normally all that hot.

I agree, the risk of a dirty bomb causing major damage is quite low. That doesn't mean the question should be completely ignored, especially since "how do we treat serious radiation exposure from a dirty bomb" is closely related to "how do we treat serious radiation exposure from nuclear explosions" (which we know can cause serious radiation exposure) or "how do we treat serious radiation exposure from accidents in industry or research" (likewise).

[Korvan]

I wonder about the effects this drug would have on sunburns? I believe the pain and inflammation are the body reacting the cell death that occurs. Definitely not worth the increased cancer risk from all those damaged cells surviving though.

[Korto]

As has been pointed out, what they've described isn't a dirty-bomb attack, normally considered to be some conventional explosive with some radioactive waste wrapped around it (possibly stolen from a hospital or university), but an actual, full blown, nuclear bomb.
As I have heard it described, a dirty bomb does all its real deaths and damage from the conventional explosive. After isolating the area, and a competent clean-up effort, the only real damage the radiation does is to panic the public (serious enough, admittedly, but hardly hundreds of thousands killed).
A nuclear bomb, of course, is a whole different matter, but the radiation poisoning would still have to be considered minor compared to the immediate damage.
The other important difference between the two is that a nuclear bomb would be practically impossible for terrorists to get a hold of, a dirty bomb merely difficult.

A good treatment for radiation poisoning is a valuable thing in itself, and it's really very dissapointing that someone has tried to jump on the terrorism bandwagon for something that if it's any good at what it claims, doesn't need it.