Antinuclear

Then there is the David Tune Review into ANSTO…something about finances and administrative review…didn’t know there WAS a review….but there is no comment by ANSTO given at the Senate Estimates of EXACTLY what it was all about or what the recommendations were!Then some very strange comments about the ANM Facility. According to ANSTO’s website it says “The ANSTO Nuclear Medicine (ANM) project includes an export scale Mo-99 Manufacturing Facility and an innovative ANSTO Synroc waste treatment plant. Both of these new facilities will be owned and operated by ANSTO Nuclear Medicine (ANM) Pty Ltd, a majority subsidiary of ANSTO.”

It was completed construction in 2019 and after an accident occurred there mid-2019, it has been on amended and reamended licence by ARPANSA to produce Mo-99 at reduced amounts. The facility cost build was estimated to be approx. $169 million in 2016…but difficult to find the actual final cost. And yet it seems ANSTO is using the old facility currently which was retrofitted? How does that work?

So many questions!…. And no-one asking them!!

One thing which is important is that the acting CEO Mr Jenkinson did correct one of the Senators regarding the availability of isotopes from ANSTO which are used FOR DIAGNOSTIC IMAGING. They are NOT used for treatment! That is the PREDOMINATE USED OF ANSTO – TO PRODUCE Mo-90 which breaks down to Tc-99m which is used for DIAGNOSTIC IMAGING…

“Senator SHELDON: You had 12,000 normal doses that would go out. You said you imported some doses to cover that. What was the shortfall from 12,000 in comparison with the imports?

Mr Jenkinson : I would have to give you a very specific number on notice. I can’t give you that information. But it would not be anywhere the level of 12,000 because of the way that the prioritisation is done.

Senator SHELDON: That means there would be quite a few people that were delayed in receiving their cancer treatment as a result of the incident?

Mr Jenkinson : There would have been a number of people certainly delayed receiving diagnostic scans, and then potentially the associated treatment they then needed as a result of that diagnosis. That could have happened.”I might leave it there for the moment…..