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3. DAMAGES IN THE FIELDS OF HEALTH CARE, FOOD, EDUCATION AND CULTURE
For more than 40 years, and since the very beginning of the genocidal
policy of blockade, the Cuban national health care and educational systems
and the realization of the Cuban people's right to food have been top-priority
targets for U.S. aggression. These attacks have not spared the population's
cultural development, despite the fact that this particular sector, given
its heritage value for every people and for humanity as a whole, has generally
been respected even in the most brutal armed conflicts in the history
of human civilization.
Actions aimed at creating the conditions to bring about hunger and disease,
and thus undermine the people's support of the Cuban Revolution, have
consistently been a part of the concrete plans and programs of the dirty
war against Cuba.
3.1.- HEALTH
CARE
There is ample knowledge and recognition of the efforts and programs carried
out in Cuba to provide the population with health care services that are
free, universal, modern and efficient, ensuring a high degree of protection
and a long life expectancy. Despite the economic difficulties facing the
country, this sector has continued to be a priority, with the development
of a health care system that extends to every corner of the country and
has made it possible to achieve and maintain major accomplishments in
this sector.
Nevertheless, Cuban
health care services have been continuously threatened by the United States'
policy of blockade. The restrictions imposed on the acquisition
of medical supplies and technology from the United States for use in the
national health care system, the obstacles to medical treatment that this
entails, and the lack of access to advanced scientific and medical information
have caused considerable damage to Cuban public health care services.
The impossibility of acquiring the necessary medicines or equipment has
sometimes prevented Cuban doctors from saving lives or relieving suffering,
resulting in physical and psychological damage to patients, their families
and medical professionals themselves.
Following are a few of the most recent cases that illustrate these consequences:
- A current example is related to Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS).
The Pedro Kourí Tropical Medicine Institute in Cuba has been unable
to acquire the Vitrogen diagnostic kit used to detect the coronavirus
that causes the disease. As a result, it has been obliged to acquire other
diagnostic means through third parties, at much higher prices.
- The companies that manufacture equipment and reagents for diagnostic
purposes are, in 70% of cases, U.S.-owned. As a consequence, the supplies
needed for the work of clinical laboratories must be imported from Europe,
at much higher prices. For example, the companies Beckman-Coulter, Dade-Behring,
Abbot and Bayer do not allow the sale of their technologies to Cuba, and
some of these are the only ones of their kind in the world.
- The effects on the availability of medicine, disposable material and
replacement parts for equipment, particularly those used in the treatment
of patients in emergency, intensive therapy and surgical wards, as well
as other services for both adults and children, have made the conditions
in which medical personnel carry out their work extraordinarily difficult.
Only the tremendous effort, dedication and scientific training of Cuban
health care workers have made it possible to maintain and even improve
many of the health care indicators.
- The care of children with cancer is one of the areas most severely affected
by the measures of the blockade:
· The purchase of cytostatics, vital for these children's survival, has been seriously affected by the fact that U.S. transnationals have bought the pharmaceutical laboratories that formerly had contracts with Cuba.
· The U.S. company Varian Medical Systems acquired the brachytherapy business of Canadian company MDS Nordion, which formerly supplied brachytherapy equipment to Cuba. As a result, the Cuban public health system has been unable to purchase the sources of Ir-192 radioactive isotopes used for radiation treatment of cancerous tumors.
- There has also been a profound effect on the health care program established
for children who need transplants, due to the impossibility of acquiring
the necessary technology. The struggle to save the lives of the children
who need to undergo these risky surgical procedures has often made it
necessary to take them to other countries, resulting in extremely high
financial costs and major inconveniences for their families.
- The quality of medical care for disabled children has been limited by
the scarcity of medicines like corticosteroids, third-generation antibiotics,
antioxidants and children's catheter bags, all of which are sold at lower
prices in the U.S. market, to which Cuba does not have access in practice.
- Restrictions in the epidemiological sector extend even to cooperation
between scientific institutions in the United States and Cuba. For example,
a rotavirus study project to be funded by U.S. scientific centers was
recently turned down. The rotavirus causes a severe diarrheic disease
in children that leads to a high number of deaths, particularly in the
countries of the Third World.
This study would have made it possible to determine the scope of the spread
of the rotavirus in Cuba, an essential element in the search for a possible
vaccine against the virus, which would have a tremendous impact on preventing
diarrhea-related deaths in children around the world.
- Dr. Roberto Fernández, head of the Biosecurity Department of
the Pedro Kourí Tropical Medicine Institute, requested a biosecurity
catalogue from a major U.S. company, a normal practice used by scientific
centers around the world to obtain updated information on products available
on the world market. Dr. Fernández received a fax from the above-mentioned
company informing him that it would be impossible to send the catalogue,
given the prohibitions imposed by the U.S. State Department.
- Another area with a direct impact on the health of the population is
the supply and chlorination of water for human consumption. Up until now,
no suppliers have been found for replacement parts for water chlorination
equipment from the U.S. companies Wallace & Tiernan and Capitol. Given
the impossibility of buying the parts directly from the suppliers, potential
vendors have been found in third countries, although the cost would be
60,000 dollars more than it would have been in the United States.
- The criminal application of the policy of blockade against Cuba extends
even to the activities of U.S. non-governmental organizations. This is
the case of the Disarm
Education Fund, an NGO that was prohibited from sending a
donation of medicine to Cuba until two antibiotics were removed from the
shipment; the antibiotics in question, Cipro and Doxycyclin, are used,
among other things, for treating patients infected with anthrax. The U.S.
authorities alleged that the decision was based on reasons of national
security.
- On April 10, 2003, the U.S. Department of Trade issued its definitive
decision to deny an export license to
USA/Cuba Info Med, a humanitarian non-governmental organization
based in California, which was planning, as on previous occasions, to
donate 423 computers to health care institutions in Cuba. The computers
donated are installed in Cuban hospitals and clinics as part of the diagnostic
and medical information network.
On this particular occasion, the computers were to be sent to the Nephrology
Institute and the national network for the treatment of kidney diseases,
to facilitate an epidemiological study for the prevention of chronic kidney
ailments. Computers were also to be given to the cardiology department
of the William Soler Pediatric Hospital, the national pediatric cardiology
network, and the Latin American School of Medical Sciences, which is attended
by more than 7 000 young people from humble families in Latin America,
the Caribbean, the United States and Africa.
These computers were similar to others donated previously, with the same
processing capacity as computers sold in any retail store in the United
States. However, according to the letter in which the request for a license
was denied, the U.S. Trade, State and Defense Departments had reached
the conclusion that this export would be detrimental to the interests
of U.S. foreign policy. The U.S. government had reviewed the letter sent
by the organization challenging the initial denial of a license, and had
determined to maintain its decision to deny the request, due to the allegedly
high levels of processing capacity of the computers in question and the
risk that they would be diverted for unauthorized uses or users.