Excellence is the Real Enemy of Practicality! Relevance to Radiation Countermeasure Development

Abstract

Radiation countermeasures development was undertaken almost six decade ago at AFRRI, USA with the aim to protect military as well as civilian personals against accidental or deliberate radiation exposure. Later on, with the advancement of radiation technologies and exploration of X-ray or γ-rays for diagnostics and therapeutic purposes, probability of radiation exposure was enhanced multifold. Therefore, importance of radiation countermeasures development was recognised globally. However, despite the concentrated efforts, till date not a single FDA approved radio protective drug is available for emergency uses. Major impediments identified in this are included variability in radio protective efficacy with different experimental models, radiation dose rate, radiation types and differential radio sensitivity of various biological systems. No way to evaluate radio protective efficacy of an agent in human volunteers. It is sufficient to realise that uniform excellence may not be achieved in the area of radiation countermeasure development. However, practical excellence based on the radioprotector’s application scenario can be achieved. Different radiation accidental scenarios and feasible practical parameters of excellence for radiation countermeasure development for particular types of incidental, accidental or deliberated radiation exposure are described.