Humbug

[CHIMO]

Chalk River shutdown spurs isotopes shortage worries

The medical community of Ontario will learn Monday morning if the global shortfall in the supply of medical isotopes will stop cancer patients from getting nuclear treatment by Thursday because a facility in Ont. shut down for days longer than expected.

Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. produces more than half of the world's medical isotopes for Canada, United States, Mexico and countries in Europe, at their National Research Universal reactor. A scheduled routine maintenance check on Dec. 5 lasted six-and-a-half days.

"Canadian patients are hanging on a string, and the string is Chalk River," said Dr. Christopher O'Brien, president of the Ontario Association of Nuclear Medicine and medical director of nuclear medicine at Brantford General Hospital.

O'Brien said at least 10,000 patients in Ontario and Quebec have been affected by the shortage. There are about 100 departments in Ontario, 20 in Toronto, that see nearly 40 patients a day.

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/553757

Simply fire somebody and sell the system to a good profit making corporation.

Obvious what all the politicians want. Squeeze it till it doesn't work.

[Caradoc]

1. radioactive politics

The whole thing has been turned into a political mess. Once again, Harper has stirred up trouble where it's not simply because experts whose job it is to run it won't jump when he says jump. Flaherty, Clement did a great job selling highway 407 for a song (built by the taxpayer during the Rae government then sold off by Harris), only to see tolls increase immediately. Selling crown assets and services is a pathetic, short-term maneuver by a government that simply has no ideas beyond rewarding true believers.

The times are going to overtake this government, and you'd think they'd at least realize that being seen to do nothing is every bit as bad as actually doing nothing. Good riddance to them.

[HeresyLives]

2. How about this?

Ont. nuclear reactor running despite 'significant' leak
David Akin, Canwest News Service
Published: Monday, December 15, 2008

OTTAWA - The nuclear reactor that is the source of more than half of the world's medical isotopes was back to full production Monday, even as engineers and technicians at the Chalk River, Ont., facility were making plans to fix a "significant" leak in one of the key pieces of machinery that is part of the reactor's core.

"The reactor is operating normally and safely," said Bill Pilkington, chief nuclear officer for Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd., the Crown corporation that operates the National Research Universal reactor at Chalk River.

But the discovery of the leak comes as nuclear medicine specialists, mostly in Eastern Canada, are scrambling this week to adjust patient treatment schedules in the wake of an interruption of their supply of medical isotopes, which developed after a routine five-day maintenance shutdown of the NRU was extended to seven days. The leak was not a factor in the extension of that shutdown.

Nuclear medicine experts said they expect only to be able to perform emergency procedures until their supply of medical isotopes can be topped up, likely at the end of the week.

http://www.canada.com/topics/news/national/story.html?id=1078749

[CHIMO]

3. And To Top It Off

The shortage in Canada is not due to the shutdown. It was a scheduled shut down. They produced more than they normally do to meet the requirements.

The shortage here is because all their product is sold to a US firm, and that firm has distributed it, as it sees fit!