The department’s announcement, which dovetailed almost seamlessly with remarks by US president Joe Biden that, with Russian president Vladimir Putin’s cryptic suggestion that his army might use nuclear weapons in Urkaine, the world is now closer to nuclear war than it has been since the Cuban missile crisis of 1962.

In that averted conflict, the US and the Soviet Union faced off for several tense days over the latter’s stationing nuclear warheads in Cuba. The warheads were deemed to be in striking distance of the US capital Washington DC as well as the population center of New York City.

While Biden’s remarks caused nervousness in the markets as well as the population generally, HHS hastened to say that the stockpiling move was not in response to the president’s remarks  but rather part of "ongoing work for radiological security," adding to the country’s stockpile of Leukine (sargramostim), which has been in place since 2013.

Nplate, approved for treatment of blood cell injuries linked to acute radiation syndrome (ARS), was developed by Amgen with financial assistance from the US Biomedical Advanced Research Agency (BARDA) and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). The drug is also approved for children and adults with the blood disorder immune thrombocytopenia, which causes patients to suffer from low platelet counts.

Most recently, BARDA has supported the development of vaccines to treat Covid-19 and monkey pox.

As part of its American Rescue Plan, the Biden administration in mid-2021 announced its intention to spend $3 billion on building a stockpile of pharmaceuticals that can be used to treat Covid-19 and other viral threats of the future. Before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 there were no indications that the US was preparing for a nuclear conflict.

Author: Dede Williams, Freelance Journalist