Joe Biden kept Donald Trump’s “maximum pressure” sanctions — discouraging even legal, humanitarian trade.
by Murtaza Hussain, The Intercept
Amir Hossein Naroi, an Iranian boy, was only 10 years old when he died from thalassemia, an inherited blood disease. The condition is highly prevalent in the southern Iranian province of Sistan-Balochistan, where Naroi’s family lives; tens of thousands of people in the region are believed suffer from the disease. It is not an inevitably fatal condition: Thalassemia can be treated with regular blood transfusions and oral medications designed to remove the excess of iron built up in the bodies of patients. For much of his short life, Naroi was able to get treatment. His fate, however, was decided when access to the necessary medicines inside Iran began to dry up in recent years.
In the earliest years of his life, Naroi was taking a specialized drug known as Desferal, which is manufactured by the Swiss pharmaceutical company Novartis. Starting in 2018, however, around the time that President Donald Trump launched a “maximum pressure” campaign of economic sanctions against Iran, supplies of the iron-chelating drug in Iran — along with other medicines used to treat critical diseases — started to become difficult or impossible to access inside Iran, according to local NGOs supporting patients with the disease. By the summer of 2022, his organs failing due to complications from the disease, including damage to his organs from excess iron in his blood, Naroi passed away in a hospital, surrounded by his family.

According to documents obtained by The Intercept, multinational companies providing drugs for thalassemia and other conditions, as well as banks acting as intermediaries for attempted purchases, said U.S. foreign policy was ultimately causing the problems delivering drugs to Iranians. Namely, American sanctions against Iran have made the transactions so difficult that supplies of the medicines are dwindling.
Recent Posts
Is A Citizens United 2.0 Right Around The Corner?
July 15, 2025
Take Action Now Is it possible for American democracy to be further degraded by the influence of billionaires? Thanks to champion of the working…
U.S. Leaders Gave Up On Diplomacy With Iran. We Must Make Them Return To It.
July 15, 2025
Take Action Now Building an antiwar movement means preventing the systemic U.S. aggression that creates the conditions for war.By Hanieh Jodat,…
What To Do When You See ICE In Your Neighborhood
July 14, 2025
Take Action Now How can you deter the Trump administration’s immigrant deportation machine when it pops up in your community? Follow these…
ICE Campaign Of Violence Will Lead To More Deaths
July 14, 2025
Take Action Now Jaime Alanis’s death shows the horrific consequences of a secret police force behaving with utter impunity.By Natasha Lennard, The…