I. The Chernobyl disaster revealed the lack of any therapy suitable for the large scale treatment of a populace exposed to single-burst radiation injury. Bone marrow therapy is deficient for many reasons, the most important being:

[a] HLA tissue matching is not possible due to cellular disruption.

[b] Matched donors are not readily available in crisis situation. Bone Marrow typing and fractionation are time demanding, and not amenable for mass treatment.

[c] Recovery from radiation injury is a function of time of initiation of therapy; immediacy of treatment is essential for survival.

[d] It is a surgical procedure demanding a specialized team operating in sterile facilities.

II. RAFS: A procedure for the isolation of a Radiation Ameliorating Factor from spleen (RAFS) was developed at the Naval Medical Research Institute,(Katz, S. and Ellinger, F, "Isolation of a Radiation-Mortality Reducing Factor from Spleen" Nature, 397-399 [1963]. The purified factor may have the potential for the treatment of individuals subjected to single-burst radiation exposure.

Histological evidence demonstrated that RAFS promotes the accelerated regeneration of hematopoietic and lymphatic tissues which is essential for the survival and recovery of the irradiated subjects.


The following is a partial listing of some of the attributes of RAFS:

[a] The dosage, based on small animal studies, would be 1-4 mg/kg body weight.
(1 mg = 0,000035 oz ; 1 kg = 2,2 lb.)

[b] Auto-immune reactions do not occur because the subject's immune system is inactivated by irradiation.

[c] Alcohol fractionation procedure is similar to that employed in commercial production.

[d] Heterologous RAFS can be employed as source material [analogous to insulin].

[e] Patient survival is a function of immediacy of treatment - therapy can be initiated without delay in view of the following considerations:

[i] RAFS is stable at refrigerator temperature for at least a year.

[ii] Intramuscular injection can be performed by paramedic personnel.

[iii] Triage will not be necessary.

This and supporting files were sent to AFRRI, DOD, DOE in Feb. 1987 - no replies received.