Medical isotopes are used in sophisticated diagnostic procedures in which tiny radioactive particles are injected into the body and then tracked by specialized equipment. Medicalisotopes.org explains that, “This enables the doctors to learn more about the diseased tissues than a diagnostic procedure that just takes a picture from the outside. Medical isotope diagnostic procedures often facilitate an earlier and more complete disease diagnosis and therefore more rapid and effective treatment.”
Canada’s Chalk River Reactor Supplies Demand
Until recently, Canada was a leader in the medical isotope field, supplying half the world’s demand. That leadership has disappeared as the country’s research nuclear reactor at Chalk River, Ontario started to sputter and wheeze its way into retirement.
The isotopes are produced by Atomic Energy Canada Ltd. (AECL), which is owned by the federal government, at the aging Chalk River plant. Nuclear reactors have a limited life and the old one at Chalk River (it went into action in 1957) has gone past its best before date.
AECL has to keep patching up its aging reactor to meet the demand for isotopes. However, in May 2009, the make-do repairs were not enough as a major leak was found and the Chalk River reactor was shut down. It won’t be back in service until the spring of 2010 at the earliest, and this has caused a critical shortage of medical isotopes around the world.
Maple Reactors Fail to Meet Expectations
The government had planned to replace Chalk River in 2005 with two new reactors, Maple 1 and Maple 2. But, the Maple program has been dogged by delays, technical problems, and cost overruns. AECL and the life sciences company MDS have together been struggling to get the Maples running.
The Maple reactors have been built and cranked up for testing, but during that process design flaws were discovered. Engineers working on the project say it was starved for funding, which led to shortcuts and the creation of mistakes.
Now, it seems the Maple reactors will never come on line; the Conservative government cancelled the development program in May 2008. A year later (June 10, 2009) Prime Minister Stephen Harper said the government was getting out of the medical isotope business altogether. “It was a difficult decision,” CBC News quotes him as saying. “But we can’t spend hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars and never produce an isotope.”
Lawsuit over Shutting down Maple Program
MDS is suing Ottawa for $1.6 billion over the Maple program shutdown. According to The Toronto Star (July 9, 2008): “MDS claims that AECL, encouraged by Ottawa, breached its contract. The company is also claiming damages for negligence and has accused the federal government of ‘interference with economic relations.’ ”
Now MDS has put forward a plan to get the Maples out of mothballs. A Montreal Gazette report (July 30, 2009) says that MDS “is proposing to finance, build, and operate a key addition to its isotope processing facility in exchange for federal officials reviving the doomed Maple nuclear reactors…”
Isotope Shortage Causing Problems
Meanwhile, sick people are suffering. Francois Lamoureux is president of the Quebec Association of Nuclear Medicine Specialists. The Montreal Gazette quotes him as saying: “We are in a state of crisis. At least 40 percent of isotope exams have been postponed.”
The Canadian Cancer Society says the situation “is simply not acceptable.”
The advocacy group points out that Chalk River supplies between 30 percent and 40 percent of the world’s medical isotopes.
“The remaining isotopes are produced by four other facilities throughout the world. It is anticipated that at least two of these facilities will be shut down for short maintenance periods at various times over the next three months.”
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