Western restrictions on Iran over purchasing nuclear fuel for its research reactor are effecting around 850,000 kidney, heart and cancer patients desperate for treatment in the country, a US media report says.
Reporting from the Iranian capital of Tehran, the Washington Post on Sunday wrote that thousands of Iranian patients, in need of post-surgery treatment with nuclear medicine, will suffer if domestic production dries up when a research reactor in Tehran runs out of fuel.
The Tehran research reactor which produces radiomedicine for cancer patients runs on uranium that is some 20 percent U-235 - an enrichment level higher than what is currently produced at Iran's Natanz enrichment facility.
"We have thousands of patients a month at our hospital alone," Gholamreza Pourmand, a specialist who treats patients using technetium-99, a nuclear medicine used for diagnosis by body scanners told the Post.
"If we can't help them, some will die. It's as simple as that," he added.
"This is about human beings. . . . When someone is sick, we should give medicine. Give us the fuel; we will make the radio pharmacy," Mohammad Ghannadi, vice president of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) was quoted as saying.
The West has been pressuring Iran to accept a UN-backed draft deal which requires Iran to send most of its domestically produced low enriched uranium (LEU) abroad to be converted into more refined fuel for the Tehran reactor that produces medical isotopes.
Iran however has not accepted the proposal, calling for "concrete guarantees" for the return of its fuel as some Western countries' have previously failed to adhere to their nuclear commitments with regards to Tehran.
The US has refused to consider Iran's concerns and insists the UN-backed draft deal which was first proposed by the Obama administration is “unchangeable.”
Iran's nuclear program was launched in the 1950s with the help of the United States as part of the Atoms for Peace program.
Former US President Gerald Ford believed that the "introduction of nuclear power will both provide for the growing needs of Iran's economy and free remaining oil reserves for export or conversion to petrochemicals."
After the 1979 revolution in Iran, Western companies working on Iran's program refused to fulfill their obligations even though they had been paid in full.
Tehran and Paris had signed a deal, under which France agreed to deliver 50 tons of uranium hexafluoride (UF6) to Iran, a promise which was never fulfilled.
Despite being a 10-percent shareholder and entitled to France's Eurodif output, Paris has refused to give any enriched uranium to Iran.
In January 1978, Germany's Kraftwerk Union, which according to a 1975 contract was obliged to complete the Bushehr reactor, stopped working at the nuclear project with one reactor 50% complete, and the other reactor 85% complete.
Iran had paid Germany in full, totaling billions of dollars, for the two nuclear facilities in Bushehr. --
Press TV
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