Re: Production of Medical Radioisotopes without reactors

[JPreisig@AOL.COM]

Hmmmmmmm,



      This is from:   jpreisig@aol.com     .



      Hi radsafe folks,



           I support production of radioisotopes using medical reactors, and 

am 

      still somewhat bothered by the closing of the High Flux Beam Reactor

      at Brookhaven National Laboratory a while ago.  The people on the east

      end of Long Island have significant clout and dollars, and once the 

tritium

      leak was discovered, the HFBR was a goner.  There are 5-6 other

      plumes occurring at Brookhaven also, although some are just chemical

      plumes, which are all being remediated, one way or another.  I'll also

      state here that I never did any groundwater modelling work for 

      Brookhaven, but was rather involved with Bonner Spectrometry work,

      Monte Carlo Modelling, RHIC shielding work, etc.  If you're worried

      about radioactive deer at Brookhaven, you should walk around the 

      Alternating Gradient Synchrotron some night (at the right places) with

      a neutron measuring device.  Sometimes DOE means Department Of

      Energy, and sometimes it means doe (see deer, fawn, buck, etc.).

      Reminds me of an old three stooges line:  Does the deer have a doe,....

      yeah, two bucks!!!!  (Sorry about that).



             If you ply with beer, I can tell you my observations about how 

the

      HFBR was closed down and all the shenanigans that were involved.

      Fact is, many of the reactor division people are still at Brookhaven.

      Some have gotten jobs elsewhere, and others work on other projects.

      What really happened is that the USA lost a pretty good reactor 

facility,

      although it was getting up there in years.



             Clearly, one can make medical radioisotopes using reactors.  

      Another means of making medical radioisotopes is using a cyclotron.

      There are a number of small cyclotrons around the USA which are used 

      for this purpose.  And, of course, we still have the NIST reactor and

      the reactor at Oak Ridge.



            Regards,                    J.R. Preisig, Ph.D.







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