The medical supply company E-Z-EM Inc. says it is building the framework to supply U.S. soldiers with a lotion that can neutralize or remove any known chemical warfare agent that touches the skin, and it wants to put their product in the hands of Homeland Security agencies.

“That’s our next step,” company Vice President Timothy G. Henry said.

E-Z-EM’s Reactive Skin Decontamination Lotion comes in the form of individually packaged sponges soaked with the solution. Users with skin exposed to chemicals including VX nerve agent, mustard gas, Sarin and Tabun can apply a RSDL sponge to the affected area and leave the lotion on for at least two minutes.

The lotion leaves a non-toxic residue that can be washed off when convenient for the victim, so soldiers on the battlefield would not be faced with the immediate need for water. The company touts its ease of use.

“Do you know how to use suntan lotion?” said Henry, who heads RSDL sales and marketing. “Then you know how to use this.”

RSDL recently received Milestone C approval from the Department of Defense, allowing individual branches of the armed services to procure it. E-Z-EM announced July 20 that DOD has placed its first procurement order worth $5 million.

It’s not E-Z-EM’s first military sale — foreign armies already deploy soldiers with RSDL and the U.S. Marines Chemical and Biological Incident Response Force, which handles chemical and biological response in the Capitol, is a customer — but Henry said the order and the approval were significant steps for his company.

“This is all the buildup to actually fielding the U.S. warfighter,” he said. E-Z-EM literature said the company has hopes of RSDL becoming the preferred way to deal with surface chemical agent exposure.

The Department of Homeland Security has not taken out any large-scale contracts for RSDL, although it has funded part of a study about the lotion’s effectiveness on industrial chemicals and in 2006 added it to the “Approved Product List for Homeland Security” list under the SAFETY Act of 2002.

E-Z-EM said the Secret Service, Pentagon, White House Medical Unit, CIA, U.S. Capitol Police and New York Fire Department are among the first-responders that have signed up as customers for RSDL and its training programs.

“Every month, we add more customers to the list,” Henry said.

RSDL is not available to consumers, but could be in the future, Henry said, adding, “We’re not looking that far ahead.”

Henry said the Canadian government set out to create defenses against chemical agents after its soldiers were exposed to them in World War II. One of the legacies of the research effort was the patent for RSDL. The government, looking for a partner in the medical field, selected E-Z-EM, primarily a maker of gastrointestinal tract diagnostic imaging tools, as a manufacturer.

Thus far, the governments of Australia, Canada, The Netherlands, Ireland, Slovenia and Sweden have supplied RSDL to soldiers and the lotion has been carried into both Gulf wars, Henry said, although he would not say by whom or if it ever had to be used in the field.

The U.S. has expressed interest, but the nation’s regulatory process — including FDA approval — has made it slower to adopt the lotion, Henry said.

“The U.S. standards are exceedingly high, as they should be,” Henry said. “The fact that the product works is a small part of the equation. The packaging and instructions have to be right.

Henry, a chemist who joined E-Z-EM in 2005, said he was skeptical of the claims behind RSDL at first.

“When I heard that one product removed or neutralized all known chemical warfare agents, I didn’t believe it,” he said. “There’s no such things as magic bullets.”

He went on to say that not only does the lotion work on all currently known agents, the study sponsored by DHS and others showed its effectiveness on pesticides and other industrial chemicals, and preliminary research indicates it works on next-generation chemical weapons.

But Henry pointed out that, for all its capabilities, RSDL is not a “magic bullet.” For one thing, it’s only for topical use.

“This product is not a substitute for a gas mask,” Henry said. “If you’re still alive, this product is for you. If you’re breathing, you didn’t inhale VX gas.”

As with all chemical weapon countermeasures, RSDL also depends on timeliness of application. Because a drop of many agents is lethal, RSDL should be applied immediately upon detection.

The lotion works on several levels. Henry said that when applied, it works immediately as a solvent, surrounding the chemical weapon’s molecules, removing them from the skin and attacking them.

A chemical in the lotion then seeks out to destroy the agent’s molecules by “cutting them in half,” Henry said. At the same time, the lotion’s nature as a chemical base affects the agent.

“What makes a chemical weapon so effective is the structure of its chemistry,” Henry said. “So to defeat it, you just need to damage it, to turn it into something else.”

He said the lotion format has several advantages to the powdered format of most chemical counteragents, which Henry likened to “dirt, or high-tech dirt.” Users can feel RSDL as it goes on, so they know if they’ve covered the entire affected area, he said. And powders can often take an agent from the skin and put it into the air, making it a breathing hazard. Henry said RSDL does not have that drawback.

Homeland security sales of RSDL are the next step for E-Z-EM, Henry said, but he added that he would like to see it used in ways beyond simply equipping first-responders. If a city experiences a chemical attack, response agencies could have procedures set up to treat victims, and stockpiles of RSDL on hand, he said.

“My personal opinion is that I’d like to see it in every police cruiser, fire truck and ambulance,” he said. “But I believe we have to perfect our infrastructure.”

Rob Margetta can be reached at rmargetta@cq.com.