Meanwhile, the head of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, Linda Keen, told AECL that it was in violation of its license. Press reports there suggest that AECL alone will, as a result of the extraordinary legislation, be able to determine whether it's safely operating the oldest research reactor of its kind in the world.

The Canadian Society of Nuclear Medicine has reacted by saying the nuclear medicine community is "devastated" by the shortages. "Nuclear medicine services are now being rationed across Canada. Patients with fractures, cancer, heart disease and blood clots are not getting timely access to critical diagnostic procedures," the Society said, also noting that the medical community is frustrated by an apparent lack of any contingency plans. And some insist AECL and the Nuclear Safety Commission should know better since this is at least the third safety related shutdown in the past five years, albeit the most severe one.


In the United Kingdom, meanwhile, The British Nuclear Medicine Society believes that the situation there is under control for the moment. In part, that's due to regulatory differences between the US and the UK, where use of Drytec generators is allowed unlike the US where they are not available.

That's not to say, however, that other problems don't exist in the UK. For several months now, the media has been warning that cancer patients are receiving substandard service because of a shortage of modern scanners and appropriately trained doctors. Nuclear medicine is in perilous condition, observers say, unless more doctors train in the specialty.

With just four positron emission tomography (PET) scanning facilities, the United Kingdom lags behind the United States and most of Europe in its nuclear medicine capabilities, says one watchdog group, the Intercollegiate Standing Committee on Nuclear Medicine.

Several years ago, Atomic Energy sold its wholesale distribution and sales business to MDS Noridon, an Ottawa-based company that is owned by MDS, the large Canadian medical services company. The company has already suggested the reactor problem could reduce its quarterly earnings by up to $9 million. Meanwhile, news organizations throughout the US were filing reports from hospitals all over the country expressing fears for their patient's well being.

What's also troubling to the US's Nuclear Medicine community is that to an extent, this country's radioisotope supplies are being held hostage to Canadian politics.

Canadian news organizations speculated that the government's decision to usurp its own, albeit independent, Nuclear Safety Commission wasn't based solely on nuclear medicine considerations. The impending privatization of the AECL facility, still a federal Crown corporation, and obtaining regulatory approval for a new generation of nuclear reactors, is an easier proposition with the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission on its heels.


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