From the Post:
Raitt reassures Canadians: 'It’s not like we have no isotopes'
'It’s not like we have no isotopes. This week we had 75% of our normal supply.'
Katherine Laidlaw, National Post
Published: Thursday, June 18, 2009
TORONTO -- Minister of Natural Resources Lisa Raitt tried Thursday to assuage public fears that Canada is in the throes of a grave medical crisis, saying world isotope experts are working on a solution to medical isotope shortage and getting the Chalk River, Ont., facility up and running again is a top priority.
"We do have a shortage of medical isotopes. The province, the government and the medical community have been working together to ensure those who really need the medical isotopes will get medical isotopes," she said. "It's not like we have no isotopes. This week we had 75% of our normal supply."
Ms. Raitt was in Toronto yesterday to meet with international isotope experts. She said the other four reactors, in France, Belgium, the Netherlands and South Africa, are meeting the worldwide demand for isotopes, but if something happens to one of those reactors that could change.
"Even with Canada down, the total global need for isotopes is met by those four other reactors," she said. "With one of the others down, total global need will not be met."
Isotopes are used to treat and diagnose illnesses such as cancer and heart disease. Canada's reactor, the 52-year-old NRU at Chalk River produced more than half the world's supply of isotopes before it closed due to a radioactive water leak on May 14.
The Chalk River facility supplies 80% of the isotopes used by two million Canadian cancer and heart-disease patients every year.
The government has said they will look at other forms of diagnostic testing to supplement a Canadian shortage. The Canadian medical community has expressed concern with relying on other forms of testing, calling them less effective and more expensive.
Getting the Chalk River reactor running again is the top priority for Atomic Energy Canada Ltd., the Crown corporation responsible for the reactor, Ms. Raitt said yesterday.
"The Canadian government has made it very clear to AECL that this is their priority and getting Chalk River's reactor up and running safely and producing medical isotopes is the most important thing they can be doing right now," she said.
The three-month timeline for closure of the reactor is still accurate, she said. When asked if she was satisfied with AECL's work to locate the leak and restart the reactor, Ms. Raitt paused and responded, "we would like things to move faster."
Revisiting the cancelled MAPLE reactors project, which concluded last year after producing not a single isotope and coming in hundreds of millions of dollars over budget, wouldn't solve the world's current problem, Ms. Raitt said.
"To revisit it... there was a lot of study done," she said. "Even if in 2008 it was determined that it could be fixed, the timeline would still be 5 to 10 years."
Ms. Raitt said she hoped yesterday's meeting, which was scheduled to last all day, would address the production of isotopes by the four other reactors, as well as a new reactor in Australia that is nearing production stage. "The reality is reactors around the world are very old," she said. "We think the most appropriate thing we can do right now ... is look at things as a whole."
The group, meeting to discuss the world's isotope supply and distribution, was formed by the Nuclear Energy Agency of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. The group has met twice since January and also participated in two conference calls, Ms. Raitt said. Members of the group include representatives from the four countries with operating reactors as well as countries dependent on isotopes but who don't have their own reactors, she said, adding that experts from Japan and U.S. were in attendance.
Dr. Robert Atcher, president of the Society of Nuclear Medicine, said Monday that the medical isotope shortage has left doctors scrambling. The Chalk River closure is having a "major impact" on medical care around the world, he said.
"It's clear that too many demands are being placed on too few facilities that are simply too old," Dr. Atcher said.
He said 91% of society members have reported that isotope shortages have affected their ability to perform tests.
"The patient community is facing one of its greatest threats in modern times -- the lack of access to a reliable, consistent supply of the most important medical isotopes used in the effective detection and evaluation of patients with cancers, heart and brain diseases and other disorders," Dr. Atcher said.
With files from Canwest News Service
http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=1709626
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Not sure if this makes me want to laugh or cry. Seems like she never learned her lesson. I wonder if that's what happens if you only have 75% of normal brain function...
AoD
