This suggested program, which addresses the current and projected future shortfalls of radionuclides in this country, has gained the support of numerous professional organizations. They include the Academy of Molecular Imaging, the Academy of Radiology Research, the American Association of Physicists in Medicine, the American College of Nuclear Physicians, the American College of Radiology, the American Society of Nuclear Cardiology, the Society of Radiopharmaceutical Sciences, the Council on Radionuclides and Radiopharmaceuticals, the Radiation Therapy Oncology Group, the Radiological Society of North America and the Society for Molecular Imaging. The American Medical Association has also gone on record of strongly supporting a national radionuclide production enhancement program.
"SNM wants to promote a unified voice for this plan, which when implemented will assure our nation of a stable and secure supply of radionuclides for future generations," explained SNM President Mathew L. Thakur, Ph.D., in the April issue of the Journal of Nuclear Medicine. Reports indicate that the majority of radionuclides used in applications every day are imported on a daily basis, and disruption of their availability threatens to interrupt tens of thousands of nuclear medicine procedures each day. Those radionuclides required for innovative research are either available only sporadically and in limited quantities or not available at all. New radionuclide production for diagnostic and therapeutic uses is not being developed, as the national radioisotope infrastructure is chronically underfunded at t
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Contact: Maryann Verrillo
mverrillo@snm.org
703-708-9000
Society of Nuclear Medicine
4-Apr-2005