“Want to Improve the Health of Millions
of Americans? Lift the Embargo on Cuba”
is the title of an article written by Peter
Bourne and published in the Observer
Chronicle on August 8. Forty years ago,
under President Jimmy Carter –when
he partially lifted the travel to Cuba ban
imposed on US citizens– Peter Bourne
was appointed Special Assistant to the
President for Health Issues.
“By reopening embassies, removing Cuba
from the “terror list” and making it a
bit easier for Americans to travel there,
President Barack Obama’s White
House has taken initial steps to put
an end to a policy that has adversely
affected the health of the American
people for over half a century. The
Senate Appropriations Committee’s
action last week to even further ease
restrictions on travel to Cuba by U.S.
citizens and relax some provisions of
the economic embargo, is welcome
for a variety of reasons, but perhaps
most urgently for the health of
citizens in both countries.”
Bourne says it became very clear
to him that no element of the two
societies would benefit more from
the free exchange of ideas than the
health of the two peoples.
He adds that the announcement earlier
this month that Cuba has become the first
country in the world to end mother-to-
child transmission of HIV and syphilis is
but one example of developments on the
island of potential benefit to Americans.
“With the door cracked open through
diplomatic relations, we now glimpse the
possibilities for joint learning, research and
development leading to effective health
strategies and new treatments.”
“As a result of our long isolation from
Cuba, most Americans are unaware that
researchers in Cuba have developed
many effective treatments at the country’s
Molecular Immunology Institute. These are
innovations that not only prolong life, but
also improve the quality of life for patients
with lung and other types of cancer. And
they have proven effective with pediatric
patients in clinical trials. One
such treatment –CimaVax, the potential
lung cancer vaccine– has recently received
extensive media attention for its innovation,
but less so for the enormous obstacles that
continue to stand in the way of the benefits
it offers for US lung cancer patients.”
Bourne explains that Cuba already has
considerable experience in prevention and
treatment of dengue, a brutally painful and
sometimes fatal mosquito-borne disease
which is endemic in most of the Caribbean
basin, including Puerto Rico, and which
has now moved into the Florida Keys,
Texas and as far north as San Francisco,
California. Cuba is home to the world’s
only World Health Organization [WHO]
Collaborating Center in Dengue and is
also managing the world’s most advanced
phase clinical trials for a vaccine against this
disease.
The US scientist believes that Cuba’s most
dramatic breakthrough, however, may be a
medication called Heberprot-P, which has
already treated more than 165,000 diabetic-
foot ulcer patients in 26 countries, reducing
the risk of amputation by 75 percent.
Bourne regrets that, unfortunately
Heberprot-P, is not available in the United
States, where diabetes affects more than 29
million people, almost ten percent of the
population. American diabetics, who suffer
85,000 limb amputations annually, don’t
benefit from this limb –and life– saving
treatment developed by Cubans.
“We are now in a moment when decisive
action in Washington could move from the
symbolic to the practical – and improve
the health of millions of Americans in the
process,” says Bourne.
“The ball is now in Congress’ court.
The House should follow the Senate
Appropriations Committee’s lead and
beyond that, vote to lift the economic
embargo on Cuba. Our peoples will be
healthier for it,”
stresses Bourne.
Under certain modifications
introduced by the US executive
branch on the provisions of the
“embargo” after the agreements
between the Presidents of the United
States and Cuba, US citizens may be
allowed
to travel to Cuba more liberally by
Washington if they have a scientific,
religious or sporting purpose,
among others. However, they are
prohibited by the US blockade –in
place for more than half a century–
to practice tourism activities in
the island (excursions, visits to beaches,
entertainment) and all forms of investment
or trade with Cuban entities.
www.englishmanuelyepe.wordpress.com
*Manuel E. Yepe, is a lawyer, economist and
journalist. He is a professor at the Higher Institute of International Relations in Havana.
He was Cuba’s ambassador to Romania, general director of the Prensa Latina agency; vice
president of the Cuban Institute of Radio
and Television; founder and national director of the Technological Information System
(TIPS) of the United Nations Program for
Development in Cuba, and secretary of the
Cuban Movement for the Peace and Sovereignty of the Peoples.
A CubaNews translation. Edited by
Walter Lippmann.
www.walterlippmann.com
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