With the fate of Hanford's Fast Flux Test Facility uncertain, about 50 people gathered at the Pasco Amtrak station hours before daylight Tuesday to do what they could to at least ensure people along the West Coast understand what's at stake.

Beneath an arch of red, white and blue balloons, they sent off a small delegation that will spend five days traveling down the coast, meeting with doctors, cancer patients, advocates, researchers, students and the media to discuss advances in nuclear medicine.

Supporters of the Hanford reactor want it restarted for the commercial production of isotopes for medicine, particularly for new drugs that selectively target and kill cancer cells with few of the debilitating side effects of older treatment. Medical isotopes are showing promise in clinical trials for treating a wide range of cancers, and two new cancer drugs that have successfully treated non-Hodgkins lymphoma patients just weeks from death could be approved before the end of the year.

"I don't know if medical isotopes would have been appropriate for my cancer," said Laurel Piippo, a cancer survivor. "But if medical isotopes save only 10 percent of the half-million people who die a year, what a gift."

Supporters of delivering radiation treatment with isotopes fear that without a major U.S. nuclear reactor to make isotopes in large enough quantities for thousands of cancer patients, medical companies will find investing in the new medicines impractical.

They kicked off their 2,000-mile trip for nuclear medicine education with enthusiasm, despite a Nov. 8 article in Nucleonics Week that questioned whether a restart of FFTF fit into the goals new Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham has set for his department. Abraham may announce this month whether he wants to continue studying commercialization of the reactor or permanently shut it down.

During his recent visit to Hanford, Abraham toured the reactor but didn't comment on how commercializing the reactor might mesh with his vision of the department's mission. An aide said he knew of no Bush administration policy statement on how producing medical isotopes fit the department's mission.

In a memo sent to DOE managers in late October, Abraham emphasized that "our overarching mission is national security."

The Nucleonics Week gloomy outlook on a restart for the reactor was written before Abraham toured the reactor last week with his friend, former U.S. Sen. Slade Gorton, R-Wash., said Bob Schenter, a Richland scientist and regional officer of the National Association for Cancer Patients.

"Being an optimist, I think we made an excellent impact," Schenter said. "It really helps to visit and see it's a marvelous facility."

The secretary's visit also offered supporters of the reactor a chance to talk about the role the reactor might play in national security. It could be used to produce isotopes now in short supply to irradiate mail contaminated by anthrax and to irradiate food, such as ground beef that could by tainted with E. coli bacteria, Schenter said, speaking at the tour's first stop.

About 35 Tri-City area people bought Amtrak tickets to accompany Schenter and other speakers on the first leg of the tour, rallying in Portland, which also has a nuclear reactor.

Reed College, a small liberal arts school, has operated a small reactor there since 1968 and students have visited FFTF.

"(FFTF) is the most fantastic research reactor ever built," said Stephen Frantz, director of the Reed College reactor. "I think it would be a national disaster if we shutdown FFTF."

The Reed College reactor, which is 1,600 times less powerful than FFTF, is used for scientific research, particularly for trace element analysis by chemistry, biology and physics students. However, students are increasingly interested in using the reactor for investigating the use and development of isotopes for medicine, Frantz said.

While most of those who rode Amtrak to Portland on Tuesday returned to the Tri-Cities that night, the Cancer Fighters Train becomes the Cancer Fighters Bus today. A handful of speakers including Piippo, Schenter and Benton County Commissioner Claude Oliver will continue down the coast, discussing medical isotopes.

Among the stops planned are a meeting with Sacramento doctors who have been unable to get the types of isotopes they need for medical research, a visit with a cancer support group at the Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove, Calif., and a stop at the City of Hope, a large children's medical center in the Los Angeles area.