In "Bruce Farquhar" writes:

Whatever happened to those AA nuclear batteries? I assume
they worked the same.

What on earth are you talking about?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_battery

Not wanting to read the entire article, apart from space are we using any now?

And eeek! Pacemakers! Don't think I like that idea.

Not to worry, ain't no more of them.

Back 1975ish there were some installed (afraid I have
no idea of the number [a]) in patients because of
the issues of standard battery life.

This was a short term program due to a bunch of
coinciding issues:

a: huge cost involved
b: standard batteries got _much_ better around then,
both in regards to power density and life span.
Oh, and leakage.
c: the Nuclear Regulatory Commission required radiation
licensing/certification of a big number of the people
involved in the process. In other words, it wasn't
like a standard pacemaker which any (competent)
medical/surgical/cardiac physician and facmility
could install and monitor.

[a] about a decade ago I had a phone conversation
with one of the major (well, there are only
two or three these days...) pacemaker manufacturing
companies. They found one of their real old timers
who remembered the deal and gave me the details
he recalled.

It's just barely, barely, possible there are a handul
still in operation. Make that a thimbleful.

It's quite likely that some were buried with their
recipient's bodies...

Oh, there was an episode of Emergency [b] where
Roy and Johnny had a patient using one.

I don't recall offhand what problems they were
concerned with.

[b] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency!



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