Cure for radiation sickness could be game-changer on many levels

Some potentially amazing news is being passed around the Internet today from the Israeli site Ynet:

Medication that can protect humans against nuclear radiation has been developed by Jewish-American scientists in cooperation with a researcher and investors from Israel. The full story behind the dramatic discovery will be published in Yedioth Ahronoth’s weekend edition.

The ground-breaking medication, developed by Professor Andrei Gudkov – Chief Scientific Officer at Cleveland BioLabs – may have far-reaching implications on the balance of power in the world, as states capable of providing their citizens with protection against radiation will enjoy a significant strategic advantage vis-à-vis their rivals.

Wow, talk about game-changers – this one has implications on several levels. Not only is this drug, which is apparently being fast-tracked, capable on immunizing people against nuclear radiation before and after an attack (tough luck, Mahmoud), it also has obvious medical implications (heavier doses for cancer treatments will be practicable).

Those two great benefits are mentioned in the Ynet article, but it stuck me there is a third at least as important. Anti-radiation medication could shut up the anti-nuclear energy crowd that has set back nuclear power plants in this country for decades. Obama’s highly traditional (as in ye olde liberale) energy legislation oddly omits the single greatest weapon against anthropogenic global warming (assuming you believe in that) – the development of a siginificant amount of nuclear power in the US similar to France and Japan. It would probably outrun cap-and-trade in its usefulness by a factor of a thousand. And if you don’t believe in AWG, you surely believe in energy independence and lower cost electricity. Nuclear is the obvious answer to that. But the fuddy-duddy left, still rapturous over the first time they saw the China Syndrome, has never allowed it to happen here. [You think those pills would be stopped by a pill?-ed. I think things are about to change in a lot of areas.]