When I first read the Guardian news about Manouchehr Esmaili-Liuisi, the young Iranian teenager dying as a result of sanctions denying the haemophiliac drugs to Iranians, I got very suspicious. There were no ambiguities in the title as to who was to blame for the tragedy; it read "Haemophiliac Iranian boy dies after sanctions disrupt medicine supplies"
There were many reasons for my suspicions about the news being accurate. First of all Marzieh Vahid-Dastjerdi, the Health Minister who was sacked yesterday by Ahamdinejad, and many other Iranian health ministry officials have been going out of their way publicly saying that the medicine crisis is not because of the sanctions but because the government and the Central Bank have not given the promised allocated currency required to import the much needed drugs and medical equipments. Instead many Iranians, health ministry officials as well as Majlis deputies have been saying how luxury cars, cosmetics, horse saddles and other unnecessary goods have been imported with the subsidised currency that the Central Bank of Iran should have allocated for importing essential goods.
"We can circumvent the payment restrictions, the problem is not the sanctions, we haven't been given any currency by the Central Bank to buy the essential medicines" The Health Minister has been repeatedly saying before she got the sack yesterday.
Not only medicines are excluded from the Iran sanctions list but the German government has even made special provisions for banking transactions for medicine exports to Iran, this was even published in Iranian dailies. On top of all of the above, it was only two years ago that amidst much pomp and ceremony, Islamic Republic declared that Iran has become self-sufficient in producing haemophiliac drugs - one of the rare good news that has recently come from Iran. Another Iranian website only today, has published a story on the satisfactory situation of the Haemophiliac medicines.
Guardian readers are a niche of their own however and they need to read the kind of news they like to think is true, but when I saw NIAC- whom many regard as an Islamic Republic lobby group in US, a sort of US equivalent of CASMII - trying to cash in on the sanctions ignorance, I was even more disgusted.
Credit to the Times newspaper who investigated the news of the Iranian haemophiliac teenager and found out the real truth of the tragedy. Sadly however, perhaps because of having been published over the festive period, the relevant article has gone largely unnoticed or at least not received the same publicity that the bogus Guardian news received.
Times investigations suggest that the unfortunate Iranian teenager, Manoucher Esmaili-Liuisi did not die because the hospital could not provide his medicine as a result of the sanctions against Iran, but because the unfortunate teenager suffered a cut during a hiking accident and he was too far from the nearest hospital in Dezful to be saved.
NIAC have also come up with an even more ridiculous story to emotionally blackmail Iranian-Americans. NIAC's gullible and naive supporters are not informed by NIAC about the real reasons for the medicine crisis in Iran, i.e. the corruption and mismanagement but are told that it is the sanctions which are killing innocent Iranians.
In an appeal for more donations from these out of touch Iranian ex-pats, NIAC have come up with a story of an unnamed "aunt of an American Iranian" who was taken to hospital and needed IV fluid but the hospital had run out of IV fluid and couldn't buy any more because of the bad bad sanctions. NIAC claimed he unnamed "aunt of an American Iranian" was instead given a water drip and died as a result. So what can the super wealthy out of touch Iranian ex-pats living in America do to help their compatriots in Iran? Send IV fluids and medicine to them? No! Send money to NIAC!
I personally talked to at least ten hospitals throughout Iran and enquired about the possibility of something like this happening. All ten without exception laughed at me and confronted me with the question "Do you think we import IV fluid from the West? It is one of the most basic things we produce and even if it is badly required in remote parts; at a minimum we can produce a saline solution with common salt".
How sad is it that some people donate their hard earned money to this man?
There were many reasons for my suspicions about the news being accurate. First of all Marzieh Vahid-Dastjerdi, the Health Minister who was sacked yesterday by Ahamdinejad, and many other Iranian health ministry officials have been going out of their way publicly saying that the medicine crisis is not because of the sanctions but because the government and the Central Bank have not given the promised allocated currency required to import the much needed drugs and medical equipments. Instead many Iranians, health ministry officials as well as Majlis deputies have been saying how luxury cars, cosmetics, horse saddles and other unnecessary goods have been imported with the subsidised currency that the Central Bank of Iran should have allocated for importing essential goods.
"We can circumvent the payment restrictions, the problem is not the sanctions, we haven't been given any currency by the Central Bank to buy the essential medicines" The Health Minister has been repeatedly saying before she got the sack yesterday.
Not only medicines are excluded from the Iran sanctions list but the German government has even made special provisions for banking transactions for medicine exports to Iran, this was even published in Iranian dailies. On top of all of the above, it was only two years ago that amidst much pomp and ceremony, Islamic Republic declared that Iran has become self-sufficient in producing haemophiliac drugs - one of the rare good news that has recently come from Iran. Another Iranian website only today, has published a story on the satisfactory situation of the Haemophiliac medicines.
Guardian readers are a niche of their own however and they need to read the kind of news they like to think is true, but when I saw NIAC- whom many regard as an Islamic Republic lobby group in US, a sort of US equivalent of CASMII - trying to cash in on the sanctions ignorance, I was even more disgusted.
Credit to the Times newspaper who investigated the news of the Iranian haemophiliac teenager and found out the real truth of the tragedy. Sadly however, perhaps because of having been published over the festive period, the relevant article has gone largely unnoticed or at least not received the same publicity that the bogus Guardian news received.
Times investigations suggest that the unfortunate Iranian teenager, Manoucher Esmaili-Liuisi did not die because the hospital could not provide his medicine as a result of the sanctions against Iran, but because the unfortunate teenager suffered a cut during a hiking accident and he was too far from the nearest hospital in Dezful to be saved.
NIAC have also come up with an even more ridiculous story to emotionally blackmail Iranian-Americans. NIAC's gullible and naive supporters are not informed by NIAC about the real reasons for the medicine crisis in Iran, i.e. the corruption and mismanagement but are told that it is the sanctions which are killing innocent Iranians.
In an appeal for more donations from these out of touch Iranian ex-pats, NIAC have come up with a story of an unnamed "aunt of an American Iranian" who was taken to hospital and needed IV fluid but the hospital had run out of IV fluid and couldn't buy any more because of the bad bad sanctions. NIAC claimed he unnamed "aunt of an American Iranian" was instead given a water drip and died as a result. So what can the super wealthy out of touch Iranian ex-pats living in America do to help their compatriots in Iran? Send IV fluids and medicine to them? No! Send money to NIAC!
I personally talked to at least ten hospitals throughout Iran and enquired about the possibility of something like this happening. All ten without exception laughed at me and confronted me with the question "Do you think we import IV fluid from the West? It is one of the most basic things we produce and even if it is badly required in remote parts; at a minimum we can produce a saline solution with common salt".
How sad is it that some people donate their hard earned money to this man?