This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

Production has ceased and an urgent investigation has been launched after two employees at a newly opened Australian nuclear medicine facility at Lucas Heights were exposed to an unsafe dose of radiation late last week.

Just two weeks after it was granted a licence to enter into full domestic production, the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (Ansto) has confirmed production at its new $168m nuclear medicine facility has been halted after “a safety incident” on Friday morning.

Ansto said three of its workers were “attended to by radiation protection personnel” after the incident, in which contamination was detected on the outside of a container holding 42 millilitres of the radioisotope molybdenum-99 (Mo-99).

Two of those workers received a radiation dose above the legal limit roughly equivalent to a conventional cancer radiation therapy treatment, an Ansto spokesman said.

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“Ansto has launched an urgent investigation after three employees were involved in a safety incident at our brand new nuclear medicine facility,” the spokesman said. “An investigation commenced on Friday, and both the nuclear regulator, Arpansa, and Comcare have been informed. An estimate of the radiation dose will be confirmed in coming weeks.

“Early calculations indicate that the radiation dose received by two of the workers involved in medicine processing was equivalent to that of a conventional radiation therapy treatment.

“An occupational physician will continue to provide ongoing observation. All three workers involved are receiving ongoing support from Ansto.”

Located at the Lucas Heights nuclear facility in Sydney’s south, the $168m nuclear medicine facility was announced by the federal government in 2012 with the goal of tripling Australian production of Mo-99, the parent isotope of Technetium-99m.

The isotope is used in hospitals and nuclear medicine centres to diagnose a variety of heart, lung, organ and musculoskeletal conditions.

The facility only received approval to enter into full domestic production on 13 June this year.

At the time, the Ansto chief executive, Dr Adi Paterson, called it “the most advanced and safest manufacturing facility for nuclear medicine on the planet today”.

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“This is a highly sophisticated manufacturing facility that will see the shire contributing strongly to health outcomes for patients across Australia, and the wait has been worth it,” Paterson said.

However, in a statement on Monday, Ansto said it would now conduct an investigation into the “design, manufacture, operations, protocols and procedures as well as training” at the facility.

“Vital supplies of molybdenum-99 nuclear medicine are currently being provided through alternative facilities at Ansto, while the investigation is under way,” the spokesman said.

It is the second contamination scare at the Lucas Heights facility in only a few months.

In March three staff at the Lucas Heights nuclear facility were taken to hospital after they were exposed to sodium hydroxide when a cap came off a pipe in the nuclear medicine manufacturing building.