USPRServices.com

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 1, 2008

A REVOLUTIONARY NEW TREATMENT FOR CANCER AND LEUKEMIA TO BE DESTROYED

OAK RIDGE (8/27) - The Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) is currently storing 1,000 to 1,200 containers of Uranium-233 (U-233) - a product made during the World War II era as part of the United States nuclear weapons program. The U-233 contains thorium-229 which produces medical isotopes – actinium-225 and bismuth-213 - which may be able to treat as many as 6,000 cancer and leukemia patients annually for at least 7,000 years.

The ORNL stockpile of U-233 is the largest source of thorium in the world. It is extremely rare. There are only two primary sources in the world – that in Oak Ridge at ORNL and a much smaller supply in Russia. According to a May 29, 2008 DOE Special Report, the thorium is an “irreplaceable” “national resource.” Others have termed the thorium a “new weapon on cancer,” “a new revolutionary cancer treatment,” and “the most valuable substance in the world.”
Actinium and bismuth – daughter products of thorium – provide an exciting new treatments for cancer and leukemia using medical isotopes that specifically target cancer and leukemia cells while minimizing exposure to healthy cells, increases effectiveness by as much as 30%, decreases side effects (loss of hair and weight), may save thousands of lives, and will help many to regain health.

Gary Trover, Chair of Citizens for Medical Isotopes put it this way, “Cancer is a terrible disease and we all know its devastating impact. … Cell targeting is the wave of the future in treating disease, and because of this ability to specifically target radioisotopes at cancer cells while minimizing exposure to healthy cells, medical isotopes can play an important role in a new revolution in cancer treatment - increased effectiveness, decreased side effects, lives saved, health regained.”

According to Dr. Darrel R. Fisher with the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory’s Radioisotopes Program, "thorium-229 is perhaps the most valuable chemical material on earth in real dollars per gram because of its potential value as the source for continually producing the valuable decay products actinium-225 and bismuth-213, both of which have ideal properties as part of the drugs needed for cell-directed treatment of cancer."

Presently, the stockpiles of U-233 at ORNL are slated to be destroyed soon without harvesting the life saving medical isotopes. According to Bill Lindley, Communications Director for USNuclearMedicine.org, “To destroy the U-233 without harvesting the thorium is a short-sighted and is an unconscionable destruction of a substance that could save lives for thousands of years.”

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT DOUGLAS YOUNG AT (865) 679-8608 OR SEE http://www.usnuclearmedicine.org/