Fear of nuclear terrorism lurks behind molybdenum supply debate

June 3, 2008 Diagnostic Imaging. Fear of nuclear terrorism lurks behind molybdenum supply debate John C. Hayes -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The crash of the radioisotope supply last winter gets a close look in this month's cover story. It details the politics and policy issues that closed down the Chalk River reactor in Ontario for nearly a month, leaving North American nuclear medicine physicians without a reliable supply of technetium-99. There's an interesting back story as well: Continued access to medical isotopes is increasingly tied into a hot political battle over how to make these isotopes without exposing all of us to the threat of nuclear terrorism. Most of the medical isotopes made today rely on weapons-grade uranium to produce the molybdenum (Mo-99) that decays into the Tc-99m used in radioisotopes for medical imaging. There are four major sources: The reactor in Chalk River receives its U-235 from the U.S. Facilities in Europe—one in the Netherlands and one in Belgiumget theirs from European nuclear powers (France, the U.K., and Russia). And a reactor in South Africa gets U-235 from supplies accumulated before the country renounced its nuclear weapons program.

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