As part of its efforts to remove high-risk radioactive material from the world, the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) said Friday it has taken the last cesium-137 blood irradiator from Lebanon.
It is an important milestone, NNSA said in a Friday May 29 press release. That’s because the cesium inside these medical devices, if stolen by bad actors, could potentially be used in a so-called “dirty bomb,” NNSA said.
Cesium irradiators are used for medical purposes such as blood treatment and cancer research, but contain highly radioactive sources, NNSA said.
NNSA has worked with four facilities in Lebanon since 2019, helping sites to remove and replace their cesium-137 irradiators with safer X-ray technologies that do not rely on radioactive sources, NNSA said in the release. The joint effort between NNSA and the Lebanese Atomic Energy Commission has strengthened the nuclear security regime in Lebanon and advanced global security, according to NNSA.
“As regional pressures and threats intensified, clearing Lebanon of radioactive material became a vital step in denying adversaries its use in a dangerous conflict,” said Matthew Napoli, deputy administrator for NNSA’s Office of Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation.
Through collaboration with the American University of Beirut Medical Center an NNSA team from Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico successfully removed the final irradiator from the facility, permanently eliminating the radiological risk.
“Thanks to the partnership with NNSA and the direct supervision of the Lebanese Atomic Energy Commission, we were able to remove the cesium irradiator from our community, replacing it with safer X-ray technologies and eliminating the danger it posed to our country,” said Farouk Merhebi, director of the Safety and Sustainability Unit at the American University of Beirut.
The Lebanon cleanout was also made possible through a partnership with the U.S. Defense Threat Reduction Agency, who transported the irradiator out of the country.