Anti-Radiation Drug

"If you have been exposed to large amounts of radiation, then use RadAway to remove the radiation from your system. It won't feel good, but better a headache and some stomach problems for a couple of days than the long-term effects of nuclear radiation!"

— Vault Dweller's Survival Guide, Fallout

20 Minutes in the Future, medical advances will bring us anti-rad drugs — special substances made for the purpose of treating the harmful effects of radiation on the human body. Whether they are called Rad-X, RadAway, Hyronalin, Neutrad, or just Anti-Rad, these drugs usually fall into two main categories:

• Preventative anti-rad drugs, meant to be taken before radiation exposure to reduce its effect.
• Curative anti-rad drugs, used for treating radiation poisoning after the fact.

Anti-rad drugs will often be depicted as taking effect immediately, and being able to completely reverse any radiation damage. In real life, while there do exist a number of treatments for radiation sickness, most of these are simply designed to get the radioactive particles out of your body as quickly as possible to limit the amount of radiation your cells absorb, and cannot reverse any damage your cells have already taken in the meantime.

Furthermore, preventative anti-rad drugs are often depicted as shielding people from direct exposure to extremely high doses of radiation (as opposed to merely absorbing radioactive substances) with no ill effects whatsoever — which is about as plausible, given real-world physics, as "drugs that make you fireproof."

Sometimes plain iodine supplements may be used as an anti-radiation drug. Iodine is used for this purpose, but only for one highly specialized instance in the body. The thyroid gland accumulates iodine as part of its normal functioning, and radioactive isotopes of iodine are a common byproduct of radioactive decay. Increasing iodine uptake is done to fill up the thyroid so any radioactive iodine does not get stuck there and instead passes out of the body as quickly as possible. The normal iodine also has to be taken before or immediately after exposure to radioactive iodine, before it can be absorbed by the thyroid - i.e. it is preventative and not curative.

Compare Fantastic Radiation Shielding, which applies more broadly to protective measures beyond just drugs, and against fantastic or supernatural radiation as well, but focuses more on the "preventative" than "curative" part.

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Examples:

Comic Books

• Spider-Man: In the Lee & Ditko era of [[The Amazing Spider-Man, the If This Be My Destiny...! arc has Aunt May getting sick from radiation poisoning as a result of a blood transfusion from Peter Parker. To cure her, Spider-Man finds out that he needs to get a radioactive isotope to formulate a cure, which unfortunately ends up in the hands of Doctor Octopus.

Fan Works

• Star Wars vs Warhammer 40K: Anti-radiation pills are seemingly commonplace within the Galactic Republic. The Republic Navy has them included in their standard emergency kits aboard each starship, while even private citizens are shown carrying around pills to treat radiation poisoning in pillboxes. The fact that the Imperium of Man doesn't have such widespread and easy cures for radiation poisoning is something that genuinely shocks Ahsoka when she learns this from reading the thoughts of a Skitarius during a battle.
• Two Sides of a Coin: During the denouement, several characters, including Eleya, are treated with hyronalin for significant exposure to triolic radiation. Unfortunately, Jerrod Dalton took such an enormous dose that he's untreatable, and dies.

Films — Live-Action

• Elysium: Max suffers a workplace accident where he gets locked in a machine that blasts him with an extremely lethal dose of radiation. He survives, goes to the doctor, and is given medicine... to deal with the pain of slowly dying from radiation poisoning since he cannot be cured by any treatment available on Earth. However, there are Med-Pods up on Elysium that can cure him, and getting there becomes his primary motive for the rest of the film.
• I.S.S.: Alexey has discovered a cure for radiation sickness. It becomes a MacGuffin for both America and Russia, who would both very much like to decide who survives the aftermath of the nuclear war.
• Screamers: Combined with Smoking Is Cool: soldiers operating on Planet 6B are issued "reds" — cigarettes laced with a drug that counteracts the high levels of radiation.
  Ace: I can't believe you've got to put this shit in your lungs, to neutralize the shit in your lungs.
• Star Trek: First Contact: Once it's noted that the Phoenix (the first Warp-capable human ship) has an exposed nuclear core, Dr. Crusher nonchalantly says that they will need to be inoculated, and proceeds to give injections to herself and Picard. She also beams Lily (the Phoenix's engineer, who got a heavy dose of radiation) back to the Enterprise; the latter wakes up none worse for wear in the sickbay a few hours later, presumably having been given the same drug off-screen.

Literature

• In the Noon Universe by the Strugatsky Brothers, humanity has perfected an in-utero procedure named "fukimization", which not only renders the subject impervious to pretty much any disease but also increases their resistance to harmful radiation of all sorts. This becomes a plot point in Prisoners of Power, where a fukimized Earthling gets stuck on a planet recovering from a nuclear war, and quickly draws the local authorities' attention by shrugging off lethal doses of ionizing radiation.
• In the story Subspace Survivors by E. E. "Doc" Smith (later expanded into the novel Subspace Explorers), radiation exposure is treated with DEKON — short for "Decontaminant, Complete; Compound, Adsorbent, and Chelating, Type DCQ-429." It's a foam that has to be applied all over the patient's body, including the hair, eyes, and soles of the feet. In addition, it has to be swallowed ("Six good big mouthfuls") and inhaled into the lungs.

Live-Action TV

• In the 7 Days (1998) episode "Lifeboat", Frank has to manually prevent a reactor meltdown. He gets a lethal radiation dose, but, luckily, one of the alien devices Project Backstep has is intended to treat such cases.
• Battlestar Galactica (2003): One of the items that the Twelve Colonies manufactured is an anti-radiation drug that must be taken by injection. While it makes the occasional appearance early on (especially in the sub-plot of Helo being stuck on Cylon-occupied Caprica), the drug makes few if any appearances in later seasons, even in situations where it would make sense for them to be mentioned.
• Chernobyl: After Khomyuk fails to convince Garanin of the seriousness of the explosion at Chernobyl, she makes a second attempt with his secretary, giving her a bottle of iodine pills and instructing her to take them. The secretary, in contrast to her boss, respects Khomyuk's scientific credibility and immediately takes one of the pills. Later on, as the true scale of the disaster is slowly revealed and unfolds, various characters can be seen taking Potassium-iodide pills.
• CSI: NY: In the episode "Page Turner", M.E. Sid Hammerback is exposed to high levels of thallium during an autopsy. As would be expected (see Real Life section below), he is given two rounds of Prussian blue as treatment while hospitalized for the remainder of the episode.
• Doctor Who: In "The Daleks", the Thals depend on anti-radiation drugs in order to survive on Skaro, and Susan has to obtain them for the Doctor, Ian, and Barbara when they are all irradiated.
• The Expanse: Miller and Holden suffer a massive dose of Gamma radiation poisoning on Eros, and barely make it to the Rocinante, at which point they are given a subcutaneous injection and recover (enough for Holden to have sex shortly afterwards) though they're informed that they have to keep taking the drugs for the rest of their lives and can't have children.
• Star Trek:
  • The medicine hyronalin, originally introduced in the Star Trek: The Original Series episode "The Deadly Years", is commonly used to treat radiation poisoning. It appears able to both eliminate the radiation and treat the damage.
  • Star Trek: Discovery: When the Discovery goes into the Verubin Nebula to discover the source of a distress signal, the landing crew takes anti-radiation tablets before beaming out into the highly ionized atmosphere. The medicine only grants four hours of protection and they develop weakness, coughs, and raw sores on their skin as the effectiveness wanes.

Tabletop Games

• Aftermath! Book 3 The World of the Aftermath: A character with Advanced Medical Skill can use the drugs in the medkit to help treat radiation damage (measured in REMs). Anarad serves as the curative anti-rad drug, purging REMs by removing radioactive ions from the body, while Anti-REM is the preventative anti-rad drug, reducing the amount of REMs absorbed by the body (the higher the dose of Anti-REM, the higher your resistance to radiation, up to a maximum of 50%).
• In the Battlelords of the 23rd Century supplement Lock-N-Load: The Battlelord's War Manual: Radiation treatment serum is a medical drug which helps to cure the effects of radiation poisoning. A double dose can help characters dying of radiation exposure.
• Dungeons & Dragons adventure S3 Expedition to the Barrier Peaks. Inside the alien starship, the Player Characters may encounter a female android nurse who can give them an injection of anti-radiation serum that cures radiation poisoning. The ship's emergency stores area has extra ampules of this radiation antidote.
• Gamma World 1st Edition. One of the types of medical equipment left by the Ancients is Anti-radiation Serum. If it is administered to someone immediately after they've been exposed to hard radiation, it will cure all Hit Points of damage inflicted by the radiation.
• Traveller Classic Adventure 3 Twilight's Peak: During the Third Frontier War, the Gyro Cadiz task force was carrying a shipment of radiation treatment drugs from Vanejen to Regina when it disappeared without a trace. When the Player Characters find the remains of the convoy more than a hundred years later, they will also find some of the drugs.

Video Games

• Disco Elysium: The character of Bird's Nest Roy was part of a cleanup crew for a nuclear reactor meltdown sometime in the past and is now addicted to Pyrholidion, an anti-radiation drug with psychedelic side effects. If the player passes a skill check to notice signs of Roy's addiction (mainly the yellow eyes he hides behind shades) Roy will offer to share some with you. It causes +1 to Psyche and -1 to Health.
• Fallout:
  • Given the nature of the setting, the Fallout series abounds with various anti-rad drugs that are an essential part of any player's inventory when exploring the more heavily-irradiated parts of the wasteland. Two of the most common ones featured across the series are Rad-X and RadAway: when taken, they increase resistance to radiation and lower the amount of radiation absorbed, respectively. Some perks available to the player can enhance the duration or efficacy of Rad-X and RadAway.
  • In Fallout 3: The Punga Fruit introduced in the Point Lookout DLC has natural anti-radiation properties akin to RadAway when consumed.
  • In Fallout 4: The Mysterious Serum is stated to remove 36,000 points of radiation damage, but this is misleading; unlike RadAway, which acts immediately to remove a set number of rads, the serum actually works over time, removing 10 rads per second for 1 hour (or 3,600 seconds).
  • One of Fallout 76's quests involves the player creating a souped-up version of Rad-X called RadShield by completing research started by a doctor affiliated with the Free States.
• Metro: Exodus: The population of Novosibirsk's metro was able to survive, despite the city's lethally-high radiation levels, due to a powerful anti-radiation drug known to them as "green stuff". By the time Artyom arrives, the "green stuff" has all but run out, causing the deaths of almost everyone in the metro from infighting and radiation poisoning. Artyom and Miller use up the last of it while exploring the city.
• S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Radiation poisoning can be cured by drinking vodka. Probably inspired by the real-life use of vodka at Chernobyl (see the Real Life section below).
• Star Trek Online: The "Spectres" mission miniseries has the Player Character and Player Party exposed to triolic radiation during an encounter with Devidians, and are treated with hyronalin.
• Wasteland 3: No-Glo is used to purge the body of any radiation and all resulting mutations (though some mutations actually have beneficial side-effects, such as enhanced senses or hyper-intelligence).

Real Life

• During the Manhattan Project, chemist Donald Mastick was sprayed in the face with a plutonium acid solution when a vial exploded. He was quickly given sodium citrate and sodium bicarbonate; which sequestered the plutonium to stop more of it from being absorbed into his body. That gave the medical team time to pump his stomach.
• During the cleanup operation following the Chernobyl Disaster in 1986, a popular myth circulated among the workers that they were being given free vodka because the alcohol helped cleanse radiation accumulating in the thyroid gland. The origin of this myth may have come from the fact that red wine was included in the standard rations of crewmen serving aboard Soviet nuclear submarines, supposedly, as the wine contains antioxidants that help combat the free radicals produced by ionizing radiation. In reality, vodka is not known to protect the body from radiation, and it was given mainly as a reward and to keep morale high (vodka traditionally being included in a soldier's standard rations during wartime).
• A protein called granulocyte colony-stimulating factor, which promotes the growth of white blood cells, may counter the effect of radiation sickness on bone marrow. Treatment with this protein-based medication, which includes filgrastim (Neupogen), sargramostim (Leukine), and pegfilgrastim (Neulasta), may increase white blood cell production and help prevent subsequent infections. If you have severe damage to bone marrow, you may also receive transfusions of red blood cells or blood platelets.
• According to the Mayo Clinic, some treatments may reduce damage to internal organs caused by radioactive particles. Medical personnel would use these treatments only if you've been exposed to a specific type of radiation. These treatments include the following:
  • Potassium iodide (ThyroShield, Iosat). This is a nonradioactive form of iodine. Iodine is essential for proper thyroid function. If you're exposed to significant radiation, your thyroid will absorb radioactive iodine (radioiodine) just as it would other forms of iodine. The radioiodine is eventually cleared from the body in urine. If you take potassium iodide, it may fill "vacancies" in the thyroid and prevent the absorption of radioiodine and thus prevent thyroid cancer. Potassium iodide isn't a cure-all and is most effective if taken before exposure or within hours of it.
  • Prussian blue (Radiogardase). This type of dye binds to particles of radioactive elements known as cesium and thallium. The radioactive particles are then excreted in feces. This treatment speeds up the elimination of the radioactive particles and reduces the amount of radiation cells may absorb.
  • Diethylenetriamine pentaacetic acid (DTPA). This substance binds to metals. DTPA binds to particles of the radioactive elements plutonium, americium, and curium. The radioactive particles pass out of the body in urine, thereby reducing the amount of radiation absorbed.

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