News Flash

THE CHALK RIVER CONTROVERSY Ottawa got early warning, firm says

OTTAWA - Senior federal officials were warned that the shutdown of the Chalk River research reactor would cause a worldwide shortage of medical isotopes at least 10 days before ministers say they were told of the growing crisis, a parliamentary committee heard yesterday.

MDS Nordion, the private firm that processes isotopes from the reactor and supplies them to pharmaceutical companies, met on Nov. 22 with Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. and Natural Resources Canada, Nordion vice-president Grant Malkoske said.

"We communicated quite clearly that, as a result of the outage, we could see a global supply shortage of 30 per cent," he told MPs.

Mr. Malkoske said he had no explanation as to why Natural Resources Minister Gary Lunn had testified that he was unaware of the impending crisis until Dec. 3.

While opposition MPs supported legislation ordering the Chalk River reactor to be restarted in December, they have since accused the government of bungling the crisis - and then exaggerating its effect in order to justify the firing of embattled federal nuclear regulator Linda Keen.

In the House of Commons yesterday, Liberal MP Omar Alghabra said it is inconceivable that cabinet ministers were not told about the growing shortage of medical isotopes, given that not only were officials told, but that the medical community began to receive warnings as early as Nov. 22.

At the Nov. 22 meeting, Nordion officials "conveyed a great sense of urgency and they warned of a global shortage of isotopes, yet the Minister of Natural Resources claims he did not know until Dec.

3 and apparently he did not bother telling the Minister of Health until Dec. 5," Mr. Alghabra said.

"Why did the Minister of Natural Resources put Canadian lives at risk because of his incompetence?" Health Minister Tony Clement stuck to his timeline, but said the cabinet ministers acted as soon as they were aware of the crisis.

Nordion officials rejected opposition suggestions that either the company, or the federal government, failed to access sufficient supplies from Belgium, France and South Africa - the only other countries with reactors that produce the required isotopes.

Mr. Malkoske said that if the Chalk River reactor goes down for more than seven days, the other reactors cannot fully supply the hospitals, resulting in a shortage. While other reactors did "ramp up," there was still a 35-per-cent global shortage in supply.

He added that the shutdown has given Canada a negative profile in the international medical community, which relies on the Chalk River reactor for more than 50 per cent of the supply of medical isotopes.

"Clearly, it is imperative that government, industry and the nuclear medicine community collectively find a long-term solution for the reliable supply of isotopes from Canada," he said.

Nordion had hoped that solution would already be in place with the planned construction of AECL's new research reactors, Maple I and Maple II, but they have been plagued with design flaws and it is uncertain when they will be completed.

Christopher O'Brien, president of the Ontario Association of Nuclear Medicine, said smaller hospitals had to delay diagnostic procedures and, in some cases, emergency surgery was performed without the benefit of medical imaging.

"We found ourselves in a crisis situation," Dr. O'Brien said.

"We found ourselves teetering on the brink of disaster before the reactor came back online."