Hot product. Purify radioisotope in Los Alamos, where a shortage of an isotope sparked an outcry from scientists.
researchers are trying to assess the hazards of arsenic have encountered an obstacle: They need an arsenic isotope for their studies, and the only place in the world which makes it is exhausted. It could take until mid-01 before enough is produced to replenish the two dozen laboratories around the world who need the isotope.
The shortage comes at a particularly bad time. In May, the Environmental Protection Agency of the United States (EPA) proposed a cost reduction of levels of arsenic, a natural contaminant in drinking water. EPA also funds a burst of research into the causes of cancer how arsenic because immobilizing the elusive mechanism could reveal whether the limit should be so strict. To understand the mechanism, researchers use arsenic-73 to find genes that metabolize arsenic and explore how these metabolites enter cells and damage DNA.
But the Department of Los Alamos National Laboratory Energy in New Mexico did not produce any arsenic-73 since the beginning of 1999. They were the isotope smashing protons an accelerator in a rubidium bromide target, but the source of the protons - a tritium production program - closed. A new facility isotope production was expected to open next year, but the massive fires that swept the region this spring pushed the completion date to mid-02. Los Alamos ran out of its inventory arsenic-73 around July.
"None of us knew about it until it is too late" to make other plans, said Marc Mass, an EPA toxicologist. There are other plotters, he said, but they are expensive and too insensitive to some experiments. Los Alamos officials say they can do arsenic-73 to another accelerator, perhaps in Canada - but it can still be six months before any arsenic-73 is available, said Gene Peterson, Programme Director and Isotope Production distribution of laboratory
that's little comfort to arsenic researchers, who are at the end of their minds. Vas Aposhian toxicologist at the University of Arizona in Tucson, who bought the last arsenic-73 millicuries this summer, said he and his colleagues "will scream bloody murder" when provisioning their laboratory works a few weeks. Miroslav Styblo, a biochemist at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, tried to convince his colleagues of an accelerator in his native Prague to do a lot of arsenic-73. But "so far," he said, "we do not have realistic promises."
Related Sites
Los Alamos Isotope Production and Distribution Program
EPA proposed rule arsenic from drinking water
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