Medical Isotopes? We CANDU that!: Feat James Scongack

Medical isotopes make modern medicine possible. We depend on a steady supply to sterilize medical equipment, as radiation sources for oncology treatments and for diagnostic imaging. Canada is a world leader in the production of medical isotopes and punches far above its weight. 

Canada's national research reactor, which closed in 2016, provided a number of isotopes including Molybdenum 99 which treated 76,000 patients a day in over 80 countries. 

Now CANDU power reactors have been put to the job and crank out enough Cobalt 60 to sterlize 25 billion pieces of medical equipment and 40% of the world's single use surgical instruments. 

I am joined by James Scongack, chair of the nuclear isotope council and an executive at Bruce Power, Canada's largest power plant, to deep dive this topic.