上周，华盛顿邮报时尚版刊登了一篇文章在国会的狗身上。这篇文章描绘了参议员基特·邦德(密苏里州共和党)对他的小狗“老虎”的热爱，可能是为了温暖人心。相反，它令人毛骨悚然。这是因为几个月来，邦德参议员一直在实行一种非正式的但被广泛滥用的参议院惯例，即暂停一项至关重要的法案这将使数百万患有严重疾病的美国人受益，并大大降低核恐怖袭击的威胁。(顺便说一句，《华盛顿邮报》的新闻版块认为这是一个不适合报道的问题。)知道邦德很爱他的狗真是太好了。他还应该表明，他同样关心人类的健康和福祉，并让参议院投票表决《美国医用同位素生产法案》(American Medical isotope Production Act, H.R. 3276)。该法案将促进开发安全可靠的同位素钼-99的国内来源，美国每年有超过1800万例医疗手术需要钼-99。账单已经被支持由代表医学界、放射性药物制造商、核工业和核安全倡导者(包括UCS)的前所未有的组织联盟发起。然而，邦德正在阻止参议院通过《美国医用同位素生产法案》，因为参议院显然误解了该法案的作用。邦德断言，该法案可能会导致切断对美国患者的医用同位素供应，显然忽视了法案中旨在防止这种可能性的保障措施。美国患者现在完全依赖国外的钼-99来源，而且越来越不可靠，因为美国没有国内制造能力。更糟糕的是，这些外国生产商中的大多数继续在生产过程中使用高浓缩铀(HEU)，恐怖分子可以窃取这种材料，并用于制造粗制核弹。美国向外国同位素生产商出口了一些这种炸弹级材料。这种贸易增加了核恐怖主义的风险，因为美国高浓缩铀的外国接受国没有像我们一样严格地保护这些材料不被窃取。国外的恐怖分子可以窃取安全措施不佳的来自美国的高浓缩铀，并使用我们自己的材料来对付我们。这简直是糟糕的政策。美国过去有一项名为舒默修正案的法律，严格控制高浓铀的出口。 The isotope production industry in other countries didn’t like these restrictions and lobbied Congress to end them. In 2005, Senator Bond successfully led an effort to gut the Schumer amendment and overturn many important HEU export controls. Now, at a time when the Obama administration has identified nuclear terrorism as the “single biggest threat” to U.S. security, there is an effort in Congress to restore common-sense controls over HEU exports. It is these provisions that seem to so irk Senator Bond. The Markey-Upton American Medical Isotopes Production Act, which overwhelmingly passed the House of Representatives last winter in a rare bipartisan show of support, would provide a huge boost to efforts to develop domestic sources of medically useful molybdenum-99 using the safer material low-enriched uranium (LEU), which cannot be used to make bombs. It would also mandate an orderly and cautious phaseout of U.S. exports of HEU, while ensuring that the supply of medical isotopes to U.S. patients is never compromised. The United States would have up to eleven years after enactment of the Act to develop alternative, LEU-based medical isotope production facilities of sufficient capacity to meet the needs of U.S. patients before HEU exports would be ended. And even after that date, if the Secretary of Energy certifies that HEU exports are the only means for meeting U.S. demand for medical isotopes, Congress could authorize resumption of such exports for twelve-month periods. To characterize the bill as mandating a supply cutoff, as Bond does, is thoroughly misleading. No U.S. patients will be unable to receive the medicines they need as a result of H.R. 3276. In fact, without H.R. 3276, American patients are at much greater risk because of their reliance on aging foreign facilities. The largest supplier of molybdenum-99 to the United States, the NRU reactor in Canada, has been shut down for more than a year because of multiple leaks in the reactor vessel. Other aging facilities have had to operate under potentially unsafe conditions to make up the shortfall. Senator Bond is employing a classic Catch-22. He refuses to support H.R. 3276 because there is no up-front proof that there will be adequate supplies of medical isotopes produced using LEU to meet patient needs. Yet industry is by and large unwilling to commit to making the large capital investments in new production capacity without the kind of substantial government support that H.R.3276 would provide. Bond’s position makes no sense. Senator Bond, don’t forget Tiger is just as vulnerable to a terrorist nuclear bomb as the rest of us. Please release your hold on the American Medical Isotopes Production Act.