I have finally watched the entire House Veterans’ Affairs Committee hearing on the prostate brachytherapy program at the Philadelphia VA hospital. You can find the webcast, along with statements for the record, at the committee website. I was pleasantly surprised by the lack of grandstanding by the committee members and their restraint in [...]
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We are finally seeing action from the US government to address the molybdenum-99 shortage. Congressmen Edward Markey (D-Mass.) and Fred Upton (R-Mich.), have introduced a bill to authorize $163 million over five years to create a domestic source of the medical imaging isotope. Unfortunately, the funding comes too late to ameliorate the current [...] Another unbelievable report in the Philadelphia Inquirer about the VA prostate brachytherapy debacle. As I wrote before, the errors in the placement of the radioactive seeds went undiscovered for so long because post-implant dosimetry was not performed. This involves CT scanning the patient, finding the positions of the seeds and calculating the ultimate [...] “During my 20+ year archival career I have had to worry about wet documents, moldy paper, insect and vermin residue, and other unpleasant things, but this is the first time I have had to deal with radiation.” The Ontario Ministry of Health has just issued a notice that the Chalk River nuclear reactor will be out of service until the end of 2009 at least. This reactor generated half of the world’s supply of Tc-99m, used in medical imaging studies. The problem is about to get worse as one of [...] In the last post in this series, I talked about how we can shape the beam of radiation in order to conform it to the shape of the tumor. If all we had to do is to shape the beam, point and shoot, this job would be easy. Unfortunately, it’s a lot more [...] I have taken a quick listen to the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee field hearing in Philadelphia on Monday (you can find the mp3 files here, along with witness statements). Nothing came out that was not already in the NRC report. However, Sen. Specter indicated that a hearing of the full committee in Washington [...] |
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