Various scientific folk cite radio isotopes as being under threat after Britain leaves Euratom.

Euratom is concerned with nuclear energy, specifically the manufacture of the nuclear-fissile products used in electricity power stations. Apart from EU directive 2013/59/Euratom which sets out unexceptionable precautions for handling radioactive materials, long established in British industrial practice, Euratom is not concerned with materials for the medical applications of nuclear radiation.

The supply and use of these materials is subject to the host of regulations governing pharmaceutical products, both manufactured in the EU or imported from abroad. Here the European Medicines Agency, through its Marketing Approvals (MA) Agency, presently head-quartered in London, is the chief regulator for the supply of nuclear (and other) medical products in the UK. The single biggest supplier of these in the EU is an American company registered in the Republic of Ireland, but supplying around 6,000 hospitals and medical agencies across the world.

As the Treaty of Lisbon makes explicitly clear, Euratom is a subordinate part of the EU. Leave the EU, you leave Euratom, but worries about the supply of radio isotopes are completely unwarranted.

 Email this article