Status of Letter to DOE Supporting FFTF Medical Isotope Production

[garthy@owt.com (Maureen (Keren) McCarthy and Marc Garland)]

Two concerns were raised regarding the letter for which I solicited support
a few weeks ago.

In response to a comment that the Canadian Nordion reactor is back on
schedule, I removed the statement about a construction delay jeopardizing
medical isotope supplies.

There was concern from Sandia that the FFTF supporters were advocating
restart of FFTF at the expense of other isotope production facilities such
as ACRR.  I replied (and should have posted my reply to the mailing list)
that we do not claim that FFTF is capable of producing all needed medical
isotopes (nor is any other exisiting reactor) and as such we favor a
multiple-source strategy to ensure the availability of all needed isotopes.
A more general concern about the funding impacts of FFTF operation should
be diminished by the fact that isotope production at FFTF is a collateral
benefit of an interim tritium production mission (to replenish exisiting
weapons); i.e., isotope production does not have to pay for operation of
the reactor.  Further, any other strategy for replacing tritium (such as a
fast-track approach for a linear accelerator at Savannah River) would cost
much more than producing tritium at FFTF and consequently would be more of
a drain on limited DOE funds.

The letter of support from the medical/scientific community to Hazel
O'Leary will be sent shortly.  More than 50 leaders in nuclear medicine
(e.g., department directors) and science (highlighted by Glenn Seaborg's
support) have lent their names to the letter.  Thank you all for your
response.

Marc