By Fran Spielman
Chicago Sun Times
Copyright 2007 Chicago Sun-Times, Inc.
All Rights Reserved

CHICAGO — Chicago is replenishing and enhancing its cache of antidotes to help first responders deal with a chemical or biological attack.

The city has issued a "request for qualifications" from companies interested in supplying "duodote auto injection nerve agent antidotes" needed to increase the "chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear and explosive preparedness" for Chicago's first responders. The kits would be used if "nerve agent or other weapons of mass destruction" were used in an attack on the city, the bid documents state.

Kevin Smith, of the city's Office of Emergency Management and Communications, refused to say how many antidotes the city was seeking to buy with federal funds. He would only say they'll be an improvement over the current version.

Smith said he was surprised to learn that Chicago started stockpiling antidotes long before Sept. 11. It happened after the 1995 Sarin gas attack in the Tokyo subway that killed 11 people, injured 50 others and caused temporary vision problems for nearly 1,000 riders.

The Chicago Fire Department already has 5,000 antidotes -- 3,800 of them distributed to front-line response companies. Those antidotes would be supplemented by a national stockpile of 25,000, said fire spokesman Larry Langford.

"They have a shelf-life of about five years and a lot of them are starting to approach their shelf-life. Just like medical drugs. If you don't use 'em, they have to be discarded and replaced," Langford said.