Report: Radiation exposure drug availability blocked by feds

CBS 60 Minutes ran a segment tonight about the bureaucratic red tape blocking availability of Neumune, a drug developed by San Diego biotech firm Hollis Eden to treat Acute Radiation Syndrome. Snip from story intro:

We can no longer ignore the worst-case scenario of a nuclear terrorist attack on an American city. Osama bin Laden has made it clear he wants to obtain nuclear weapons and use them against us. The 9/11 Commission considers such an attack the No. 1 threat today, not because it’s the most likely disaster scenario, but because it would be the most devastating. The chairman of the 9/11 Commission even says he expects to see such an attack on an American city in his lifetime.

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?

Link. Disclaimer: I worked on Hollis Eden's first-ever website years ago, when I was a grunt coder at a San Diego web development firm.