Blocked by Sanctions, Iran Heals with Nuclear Tech
WANA (Jun 07) – Despite years of Sanctions and accusations aimed at Iran over alleged attempts to build nuclear weapons — claims repeatedly dismissed even by the International Atomic Energy Agency — Iranian officials continue to underline the peaceful nature of the country’s nuclear program.
As emphasized by Iran’s Supreme Leader, nuclear technology is seen as the ” mother of modern technologies,” and in Iran’s case, plays a particularly vital role, especially in healthcare and medical innovation, due to imposed sanctions.
Mohammad Eslami, head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI), pointed out one of these achievements: heavy water. He reaffirmed the strategic importance of Iran’s heavy water industry, calling it one of the key outcomes of long-term strategic planning.
According to Eslami, the development of this capability using entirely domestic expertise, without foreign assistance, reflects Iran’s commitment to self-sufficiency in high-tech sectors.
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“Our priority has been to stabilize this capacity, ensure its sustained quality, and enhance it to a level that meets global standards,” he said. Eslami added that Iran is now moving toward expanding the use of heavy water derivatives in the production of advanced pharmaceutical products.
He also criticized repeated claims from Western countries suggesting that heavy water is primarily used for military purposes. “This is a deliberate attempt to mislead public opinion and block us from leveraging this technology for new and advanced areas like pharmaceuticals, which can even become a source of export,” he stated.
Eslami noted that Iran’s heavy water production facilities are currently operating at full capacity and that the country plans to double this capacity in the near future. The goal is to support domestic needs in the medical sector and to meet international demand for products such as Oxygen-18, a high-demand isotope used in diagnostic imaging and research.
Beyond these industrial goals, Iranian officials highlight that over one million patients in the country annually benefit from nuclear-based medical technologies.
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Radiopharmaceuticals — a central application of nuclear science — are used for highly accurate diagnosis and targeted treatment of diseases such as cancer. These substances enable physicians to image internal organs with precision and to deliver localized radiation therapy.
What Iranian officials find especially contradictory is that the very governments calling on Iran to halt its nuclear program are the same ones that, for years, have imposed sanctions that severely restricted access to essential medicines and life-saving treatments, etc.
In their view, it is illogical and unreasonable to demand that Iran abandon a technology that serves public health and scientific progress, while also denying the country the basic means to care for its people.
For Tehran, such actions are not just policy decisions — they are evidence of longstanding hostility and an unwillingness to see Iran develop, even in areas as vital as healthcare.
