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.