Nuclear terror: making it even worse

If you missed this Sunday’s 60 Minutes story on why we haven’t stockpiled a safe, reliable drug that could save thousands of lives in the event of nuclear terrorism, read the transcript here. Highlights:

Who made the decision to buy 100,000 doses instead of [the 10 million that are needed]? It was Stewart Simonson... a Republican political appointee who, before running Project Bioshield, was a lawyer for Amtrak. Republicans as well as Democrats have criticized his management of the program.

"Secretary Simonson just appears to be over his head on this particular issue," says Rep. Tom Davis, a Virginia Republican, who chairs the committee that oversees Project Bioshield... He says Simonson lacks the necessary technical and scientific background, and compares him to Michael Brown, the former FEMA director who resigned after Hurricane Katrina...

"Michael Brown had been before our committee prior to Katrina and exhibited the same kind of arrogance, a lack of expertise. This is a serious job at this point, and I think we need to have professionals filling it, not political appointees."

Seems the drug in question, NEUMUNE, can be stored and self-administered. This would seem to be helpful in the chaotic aftermath of a nuclear attack. Unless you’re Simonson, who

...wrote a letter to Congress emphasizing that nuclear victims bleeding to death could be treated in hospitals. Asked if he thinks hospitals would be able to handle the load of patients in such an event, Simonson’s deputy, Raub, says, "There would be hospital capacity that would be able to treat a substantial portion of that load. By no means would there be the ability to treat all of it, and therefore that’s what makes it a catastrophe."

Nuclear terror would be horrific even in the best of circumstances. But we’re choosing policies guaranteed to make it even worse, much worse. Just like Katrina. Just like Iraq. For an administration that has performed so poorly on securing stray nuclear material in Russia, Iraq, and elsewhere, you’d think protecting the homefront would be a slightly higher priority.

P.S. Kudos to 60 Minutes for covering this story. The so-called mainstream media’s taken their share of lumps lately, mostly well-deserved (see Deborah Howell and the Washington Post’s Abramoff fiasco). But we’re starting to see some nice work here and there again, and it deserves to be recognized. Perhaps the “Fourth Estate” -- the press -- is finally waking up from its long slumber. If only we could wake up the “Third Estate”: the citizenry. Increasingly, that’s where the problem lies.