The first human trial of a new type of dirty-bomb-antidote pill, designed to remove harmful radioactive contamination from the body, is starting in the US.

The drug, HOPO 14-1, is thought to work against several materials that might be used in weapons, including uranium.

If it proves safe and effective it could guard against potential harm from nuclear accidents or terrorist attacks.

About 42 volunteers will try different doses, checking for side effects.

There will be « intensive safety monitoring », with results from the phase one study expected in 2024, say the trial leaders from SRI International of Menlo Park, California, who are receiving funding from US government agency the National Institutes of Health.

What is a dirty bomb?

Also known as a radiological dispersal device or RDD, a dirty bomb is an explosive that has been mixed with radioactive material so that when it goes off there will be contamination of the blast zone.

A dirty bomb is not a nuclear bomb – it is « weapon of mass disruption » rather than « mass destruction », says the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

The cloud of radiation from a dirty bomb could be dispersed within a few blocks or miles of the explosion, whereas a nuclear bomb could spread thousands of square miles.

Exposure to radiation can damage a person’s DNA, tissues and organs, leading to illnesses, including cancer, which is why an oral drug that could counteract some of the effects would be useful.

There are already two different drug injections that can be used to treat people who have been exposed to radioactive plutonium, americium or curium.

For decades, experts have also known that iodine tablets can be deployed to help protect people if radioactive iodine has been released into the environment; it was given to people in 1986 when a nuclear accident occurred at the Chernobyl power plant.

Another pill, Prussian blue (potassium ferric hexacyanoferrate), can help remove radioactive caesium and thallium.

If HOPO 14-1 works, it would be another to add to the stockpile, offering protection against uranium and neptunium in addition to plutonium, americium and curium.

There has not yet been a successful dirty-bomb attack anywhere in the world.

However, there have been attempts.

In 1996, rebels from Chechnya planted a bomb containing dynamite and radioactive caesium-137 in Moscow’s Izmailovo Park.

Security services discovered its location and it was defused.

In 1998, Chechnya’s intelligence service found and defused a dirty bomb that had been placed near a railway line in Chechnya.

By Michelle Roberts – BBC News

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The wife of jailed Mexican drug lord Joaquín « El Chapo » Guzmán has been arrested in the US on suspicion of drug trafficking, US authorities say.

Emma Coronel Aispuro, 31, was detained at Dulles International Airport outside Washington DC.

She is charged with participating in a conspiracy to distribute heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine and marijuana.

Guzmán is currently serving a life sentence in Colorado for drug trafficking and money laundering.

The 63-year-old is a former head of the Sinaloa cartel, which officials say was the biggest supplier of drugs to the US.

His trial in 2019 heard shocking revelations about his life, from drugging and raping girls as young as 13 to carrying out the cold-blooded murders of former cartel members and rivals.

Ms Coronel Aispuro is due to appear in a federal court in DC via video conference, the US justice department said.

As well as facing drug trafficking charges, she is also accused of conspiring with others to help her husband escape from prison in Mexico in 2015.

He was sprung from Mexico’s maximum-security Altiplano prison after his sons bought a property near the prison and a GPS watch smuggled into the prison gave diggers his exact location. He escaped by riding a specially adapted small motorcycle through the tunnel.

Court documents said Ms Coronel Aispuro was allegedly involved in planning another prison escape for her husband before he was extradited to the US in January 2017.

She has not commented on the charges.

Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said the arrest was « a matter that the United States will decide », but said he hoped the US would share more of the details.

Who is Emma Coronel Aispuro?

Ms Coronel Aispuro is a dual US-Mexico citizen, a former beauty pageant winner and journalism student, and the mother of twins with Guzman. According to previous interviews she’s given to US media, she first met Guzman at a dance when she was 17 and he was 49.

She attended nearly every day of her husband’s three-month trial in New York, during which she heard not only grim accounts of murder and rape, but also claims he spied on her and other mistresses.

She came under the media spotlight during that trial. In one instance, she appeared to laugh during the tearful testimony of one of Guzman’s mistresses. On another day she and Guzman wore similar velvet jackets, which many people interpreted as a show of solidarity.

She remained supportive of Guzman throughout, saying at the end of the trial: « I don’t know my husband as the person they are trying to show him as, but rather I admire him as the human being that I met, and the one that I married. »

Guzmán came from a poor family in Sinaloa state, north-west Mexico. His organised crime business grew so big that he entered Forbes’ 2009 list of the world’s richest men at number 701, with an estimated worth of $1bn (£709m).

World Opinions News by bbc.com

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