OTTAWA - The Harper government has named its expert panel to look at medium- and long-term supply options for medical isotopes.
The four-member panel includes:
- Richard Drouin, a lawyer and former chair of the North American Electric Reliability Corporation;
- Peter Goodhand, head of the Canadian Cancer Society;
- Dr. Thom Mason, a leading nuclear scientist who works with the U.S. Department of Energy; and,
- Dr. Eric Turcotte, a nuclear medicine researcher from the University of Sherbrooke.
The panel will study proposals for the alternative production of the key medical isotopes molybdenum-99 and technetium-99m.
Those isotopes have been in short supply since Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. shut down its aging reactor at Chalk River, Ont.
The 52-year-old reactor produces a third of the world's supply of the isotopes used in cancer and heart scans.
The panel will release its final report by Nov. 30.