Isotope Meltdown

Just a few decades ago we put a man on the moon. Now we can't even maintain a reliable supply of radioisotopes for essential medical diagnostics.

Stephen Harper, whose "know nothing/do less" government has grossly mismanaged Atomic Energy of Canada's Chalk River plant, has brought Canadian production of isotopes to a grinding halt. There's talk of the Chalk reactor being up and running again by year's end but a lot of desperate customers aren't holding their breath.

Now it appears there are problems with Holland's Petten reactor that supplies fully half of all isotopes used in the United States. According to the Los Angeles Times, thousands of lives are in jeopardy and there are no answers in sight:

The shortage "is one of the greatest threats to our profession of modern times," said radiologist Robert W. Atcher of the University of New Mexico, last year's president of SNM.

The focus of this shortage is a short-lived radioisotope that most patients have probably never heard of -- technetium-99m, the "m" standing for metastable. With a half-life of only six hours, the isotope allows physicians to examine bones and blood flow, among other things, then quickly disappears from the body, minimizing the dose of radiation received by the patient. Because of its short half-life, the isotope cannot be stockpiled and must be used within a day or two after it is produced.

Every day of the year, nearly 55,000 Americans and tens of thousands of patients in other countries undergo nuclear medicine tests -- such as checking for the spread of cancer to the bones or monitoring the flow of blood through the heart -- most of them using technetium-99m. The radioisotope is attached to chemicals that allow it to bind to specific sites in the body, where it emits gamma rays that can be used to produce an image of the area.The technetium-99m used in these tests is produced in five reactors around the world, all of them at least 45 years old and none of them in the United States.

Three times within the last 18 months, the National Research Universal reactor in Chalk River, Canada, which normally supplies about a third of U.S. technetium-99m demand, has shut down because of leaks of radioactive tritium-contaminated water. On May 14, it shut down for the third time, and it will not reopen until the end of the year. Some experts suspect it will never reopen if a containment vessel is badly corroded.

Even if it reopens, its long-term prospects are not good. Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper said this year that the country would be out of the radioisotope business by 2016 because of repeated failures to bring a new reactor online. "We can't spend hundreds of millions of dollars and never produce an isotope," he said.

Last month, the Petten nuclear reactor in the Netherlands, which supplies half the U.S. requirement, shut down for a month for routine maintenance and it is expected to close for at least three months next year for repairs.

What's the answer? Don't ask Prime Minister Dopey. He's about as adept at handling the Chalk River crisis as he was in bracing Canada for the recession. With SHarper at the helm, we've all got reason to worry.

Why Won't Harper Fix Chalk River?

Maybe he's just plain happier devoting his limited talents to attack ads.

The Chalk River nuclear installation is down again. Heavy water leaks. Let's see, the Chalk River facility has been beset by massive problems for two years. That's all been on Harper's watch. It's still screwed up. He fired Keene when he needed a scapegoat but those only come in ones and there is no ducking the scandal this time. Steve has to wear this one.

Atomic Energy Canada, or more correctly, Steve's Atomic Energy Canada has shut down the reactor so it can take a month to figure out what to do. In the meantime that reactor won't be producing isotopes which will leave radiology in a bad way in central and eastern Canada.

Steve's own beloved Alberta, however, apparently knows better than to trust the Harper government to supply isotopes. It gets its supply from Europe. Oh, I guess that explains why Harper could care less.

Lunn Slammed Again

When the Conservative party's house organ, The National Spot, trashes one of Stephen Harper's ministers twice in a week, well maybe there's something seriously wrong with that minister and the prime minister who simply refuses to see reality. John Ivison again says that natural resources minister Gary Lunn knew or ought to have known about the problems plaguing the Chalk River reactor months before they became critical and, if Harper is looking to fire anyone, it probably should be the very guy he's been defending:

The Conservative government has laid the blame for the crisis at the feet of Linda Keen, president of AECL's regulator, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission. Prime Minister Stephen Harper said yesterday she was guilty of "needlessly endangering" the lives of Canadians by not allowing the reactor to reopen. In a letter to Ms. Keen, Mr. Lunn asked her to provide him with reasons why she shouldn't be fired.

But an audit of AECL's operations by the Auditor-General, released by the nuclear operator late on Wednesday, suggests that Mr. Lunn was well aware of problems at Chalk River, including technical compliance concerns on the part of the CNSC. In this light, if anyone should be fired, perhaps it should be him.

...an ill-prepared Mr. Lunn ...pitched headlong into the isotope crisis and proceeded to bully and hector a regulator who answers to Parliament, not the minister.

To no one's great surprise, Mr. Harper backed Mr. Lunn yesterday. Speaking in New Brunswick, he said his Minister had "acted beyond the call of duty," which suggests Mr. Dion is not going to get his wish. The nuclear regulator is required by law to be free from political interference, but for a Prime Minister and government whose modus operandi is to subject the wills of others to their own, this is an alien concept.