Brexit's latest no-deal crisis? Decaying radioactive medicine

At the end of 2018, secretary of state for health Matt Hancock boasted that he was now the “world’s largest buyer of fridges” to stockpile food and drugs in case of a no-deal Brexit.

Since August 2018, when the UK government told pharmaceutical companies to stockpile medicines in order to navigate a no-deal scenario Brexit, doctors, drugmakers and NHS administrators have expressed doubts on the plan’s viability, given that Britain does not have enough cold chain warehouses to store the extra drug reserves.

But little attention has been given to another stark challenge that patients and clinicians might face. Some key diagnostic tools and cancer treatments rely on radioactive isotopes that would decay until they became effectively useless if they are held up in the anticipated six-week border delay that's expected from a no-deal Brexit.

To read more please visit: https://www.wired.co.uk/article/no-deal-brexit-consequences-medicine-cancer

Source: WIRED