maybe they should spend some money on producing pharmaceuticals instead of weapons...
Posted on 01/13/2013 4:32:14 PM PST by DeaconBenjamin
Hundreds of thousands of Iranians with serious illnesses have been put at imminent risk by the international sanctions, due to dire shortages of life-saving medicines such as chemotherapy drugs for cancer and bloodclotting agents for haemophiliacs.
Western governments have built waivers into the sanctions regime in an effort to ensure that essential medicines get through, but those waivers conflict with blanket restrictions on banking, as well as bans on "dual-use" chemicals which might have a military application.
"Sometimes companies agree to sell us drugs but we have no way of paying them. On one occasion, our money was in the bank for four months but the transfer repeatedly got rejected," Naser Naghdi, the director general of Darou Pakhsh, the country's biggest pharmaceutical company, told the Guardian.
"There are patients for whom a medicine is the difference between life and death. What is the world doing about this? Are Britain, Germany, and France thinking about what they are doing? If you have cancer and you can't find your chemotherapy drug, your death will come soon."
Discussions are under way in Brussels on how to strengthen safeguards for at-risk Iranians. The US treasury says its office of foreign asset control is seeking to reassure banks that they will not be penalised for financing humanitarian sales.
However, US and EU bans on the major Iranian financial institutions make such transactions extremely difficult and risk-averse western companies have tended to avoid them.
A senior British official acknowledged that discussions between London, Brussels and Washington had been going on for months with the aim of unblocking the supply of medicines, without a decisive outcome. "For some of the big pharmaceutical companies and banks it's just not worth the hassle and the risk of reputational damage, so they just steer clear," the official said.
(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...
No big deal. Brits are unable to get life-saving drugs due to the postal codes they may be in.
I would LOL but it is all too true. And, it'll happen here. Wait'll HHS offers its managers bonuses for "saving" money.
maybe they should spend some money on producing pharmaceuticals instead of weapons...
> at imminent risk by the international sanctions
No, at risk due to ignorant minions following a moon god and islamoscum instead of cleaning house.
I’m all out of tears.
Considering the source, an English communist “news” paper, I disbelieve every word of it.
That is the way totalitarian regimes operate. They let the “non-essential” people die to make sure politically affluent and military-police stay healthy.
So? /s
Oh well. Let them petition their government to make some changes.
[Islamics threaten ice makers/delivery vendors in war torn Baghdad ...reason given above.]
T.S.
Yep. Have we forgotten the BS we were told about Iraqis dying due to “lack of medicine”? It was only used by the left to lift sanctions.
To #8: I agree with your assessment of the Guardian. So far left that is is to the left of the Communist Party of Britain and the Socialist Workers Party.
This sounds more like an Iranian disinformation ploy. They have plenty of money from oil and they get shipments of everything from Russia, Pakistan, and No. Korea to name a few sources of supplies.
Oh, did I leave out Code Pink?
The good thing is that Iranis realize that the real cause of these problems is the government. They aren’t blaming the west, but their own government.
The pakis and north Koreans don't have the tech to make such medicines -- the Russians maybe
these sanctions should be kept in place -- it's only causing more anger against the Ayatollahs.
good...
yup, and we should keep the sanctions on — this is in our interest and also in the long term interest of the people of Iran. They will kick out the Ayatollahs and the only way is less Islam...
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