In 2000 the large NRU research reactor, producing a very large fraction of the world’s medical isotopes, was supposed to be shut down permanently after working for 43 years. So AECL designed and built two replacement reactors called MAPLEs, each one capable of producing the same volume of isotopes as the NRU had done. Problem is, the MAPLE reactors don’t work as designed. In fact they are unsafe. Despite many years the nuclear experts have been unable to figure out why, so now they are being dismantled without ever serving a useful purpose. Gordon Edwards is briefly interviewed.