11/6/2009
The US blockade against Cuba is anachronic
José Ramón Fernández, vice-president of the Ministers Council of Cuba, affirmed that the obstacles to the scientific exchange between his country and USA, are another example of the anachronism of the blockade from Washington to the Island. When closing the Biotechnology Congress Havana 2009, that gathered about 500 experts of more than 30 nations, included two Nobel prizes, contrasted the great affluence of foreign experts with the poor attendance of North American scientists, many of which were prevented to come. Robert Huber and Harald zur Hausen, both of them Germans scientists, who won the Nobel prize in Chemistry (1988) and Physiology and Medicine (2008), respectively, distinguished the Congress and imparted keynote lectures. Fernández highlighted that Cuba produces 85% of all the medicines the country consumes, and this fact ratifies the importance of the program of biotechnical development devised by Fidel Castro, leader of the Cuban Revolution, at the beginning of the eighties. He also explained that biotechnological Cuban industry produces 8 of the 11 vaccines included in the national program of immunization. One of them have allowed, for almost 10 years, that no child smaller than five years in Cuba get Hepatitis B, besides diminishing the incidence of this illness, that is considered a health problem for the Humanity. He also mentioned the Heberprot-P, a medicament for the treatment of deep ulcers in diabetic patients with amputation risk, and its employment has been widespreaded in Cuba and Venezuela. Fernández added that another result of the Cuban science that will be reverted in more health for the people is a liquid pentavalent vaccine, produced by few companies in the world. The Cuban scientists develop other products, like the vaccine against the Hepatitis C and several therapies, that fight cancer. José Ramón Balaguer, member of the Politburo of the Cuban Communist Party and minister of Public Health, Ismael Clark, President of the Academy of Science of Cuba, among other leaders and personalities, also attended the closing ceremony.
http://www.granma.cubaweb.cu/2009/11/06/nacional/artic08.html
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