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The Lobby Versus Science

By Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich

10 December, 2009
Countercurrents.org

Tragic as war is, it has often led to scientific and medical discoveries. Today in Washington, the pro-Israeli Lobby is using science as a pretext for war -- scientific and medical discoveries that may help not only developing nations, but advance healthcare in America and elsewhere.

Included in Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights clearly includes the right of every one to medical care [i]-- yet it appears that the pro-Israel lobbyists in Washington have persuaded policy makers that the developing world is excluded from this right, and Iran's significant scientific achievements are a global threat designed to do ill and not the means to heal. Dissemination of such misinformation is akin to the very cancer that the Iranian scientists have been attempting to cure and stem out.

In 1972, a joint research project (French-Iranian scholars) on esophageal cancer in the Caspian Littoral of Iran was released. The findings indicated that the region had among the highest recorded incidences of esophageal cancer[1] in the world. The utility of the research was that given its location, it was not unique to Iran and represented the Middle East, China, Afghanistan, and former Soviet central Asia, parts of Siberia, Mongolia, and northern and western China [ii].

Perhaps it is with this in mind that almost four decades later, in 2007-2009, US National Institute of Cancer sponsored the study of Esophageal Cancer in Iran[iii]. Later, with "health diplomacy" in mind, Iran and the United States, with foresight and fortitude by the National Institute of Health's mission of Science for Health launched on three areas of cooperation: 1) Esophageal Cancer; 2) Mustard Gas Exposure and Lung Carcinogenesis; 3) HIV and drug use.[iv] It is not without irony that Iran's research and expertise in mustard gas illnesses and injuries should be the direct result of America's policies during the 8-year Iran-Iraq war when the U.S. decided to arm Saddam Hossein with CBTW (chemical, biological, toxin warfare)[v] material.

Today, in order to wage another war against Iranians and to ensure that Iran shares Iraq's fate, the argument presented by the Lobby and trumpeted by the neoconservative-dominated media is why does Iran not need to enrich uranium. Before one responds that it is Iran's right under the NPT, it would be more simple to demand of the neoconservatives to explain why America and her allies should place such a high demand on readioisotopes?

In 1959, Science reported that radioisotopes have always been a source for "scientific research, and their application to such activities as agriculture, industry, and medicine is now steadily increasing"[vi] Today, there is a dire shortage . On July 26, 2009, The Houston Chronicle reported that a drug crucial to medical tests was in short supply. This was due to the loss of the 51-year-old reactor in Ontario, Canada that produces much of this drug, a radioisotope. In the same issue, Dr. Einstein mentions the numerous uses of radioisotopes.

In "Blood Weekly", (July 2, 2009, p603), Cotara R, a radioisotope being developed as a potential new treatment for glioblastoma multiforme (GBM), a deadly form of brain cancer. In October, Iran announced it had produced two new radio medicines called "Samarion 153" and "Renium 186" which were able to reduce pains of cancer patients. Furthermore, these medicines could be used for defining of cancer and reducing bone disease. Iran also informed that the results of a new anti-cancer medicine would be publicly announced in 2010[vii].

However, the Iranian-derived radio medicine differs vastly from the Canadian product.

The U.S. supplies weapon-grade uranium (HEU, 90-percent 235U) to the Canadian radioisotope producers. HEU is capable of making a bomb which is why the 1992 Schumer Amendment to the U.S. Atomic Energy Act requires that a foreign producer cooperate with the United States in converting to LEU. In 2005, a lobbying campaign sponsored by MDS-Nordion and Mallinckrodt resulted in the Burr Amendment in the National Energy Policy Act of 2005. This amendment exempts target HEU used by medical radioisotope producers in Canada, Belgium, France, Germany, and the Netherlands from the Schumer Amendment’s requirements[viii].

Iran uses LEU (containing less than 20 percent 235U). Not only is this the standard permissible under the NNPT, but it is the standard that the United States is pushing its allies to strive for. There are currently some challenges in converting from HEU to LEU. While there are two major plants which supply much of the required isotopes, the main technical issue that has been raised by current producers is increased waste generation when LEU is used.

The Department of Energy's findings indicate not only a coming shortage in medical isotopes, but a promise of new treatments such as ' isotopes for cancer therapy and pain control'[ix] . Given this view, Iran's extraordinary achievement is to be commended, not blasted - literally. Even in isolation Iran's remarkable strides in medicine can serve as a bridge, not as a crevice. Medicine is not the only common threat between the two nations. Science and engineering has always bonded the two nations (2007[x]). Seismic Science has its unique and special place in research.

It is incomprehensible that even though Washington has full knowledge that Iran's pursuit of nuclear program is for civilian purposes, and the two countries have cooperated in medical research, the lobby had demanded that Iran be hauled to the UNSC, and it is now calling for further sanctions to be imposed on Iran. Is there any doubt that they are pushing for an eventual war? The Scientist confirms that there will be an oil crisis by 2030[xi]. It is tragic that a nuclear program intended for civilian use, and research programs with the potential to cure and alleviate human suffering should be the lobby's weapon for destruction - at home and abroad. Perhaps the real tragedy is the realization that Americans are sovereign no more.

Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich has Master's in Public Diplomacy from USC Annenberg for Communication and USC School of International Relations. She is an independent researcher and focuses on U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East and the influence of lobby groups.

[1] Cancer that occurs in the esophagus — a long hollow tube that runs from the throat to the stomach. The esophagus carries food to the stomach to be digested

[i] http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/index.shtml#a25

[ii] Science, New Series, Vol. 175, No. 4024 (Feb. 25, 1972), pp. 846-853

[iii] http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT00544843

[iv] http://acd.od.nih.gov/slides/
120106/GlassACD120106.pd
f

[v] http://www.cbsnews.com/storie
s/2002/12/31/world/main534798.shtml

[vi] Science, New Series, Vol. 130, No. 3384 (Nov. 6, 1959), p. 1247

[vii] Mehr news agency, Tehran, October 16, 2009

[viii] Frank N. von Hippel and Laura H. Kahn, Science and Global Security, 14:151–162, 2006

[ix] http://www.ne.doe.gov/neac/
neacPDFs/isotopedemand.pdf

[x] http://www.eetimes.com/showA
rticle.jhtml?articleID=202804309

[xi] http://www.newscientist.com/article/
mg20427375.900-e
xtreme-oil-scraping-the-bottom-of-earths-barrel.html

 


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