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Decisive Results … and New Challenges

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Subalternity vs. Hegemony, Cuba's Outstanding Achievements in Science and Biotechnology, 1959-2014

Part of the book series: SpringerBriefs in History of Science and Technology ((BRIEFSHIST))

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Abstract

At the end of the 1980s Cuba was hard hit by the unexpected sudden dissolution of the Soviet Union and the socialist market. The substantial resilience of the Cuban scientific system in the face of this event, despite unavoidable setbacks, confirmed its achieved autonomy. What seems remarkable is that even in this extremely critical economic situation the Cuban government once again confirmed its support for science as a strategic choice. And up to now this has proved a trump card. True, several scientific sectors had to be downsized or redirected, but for health biotechnology unconditional support was confirmed and even reinforced. Incorporation in the unprotected global market has raised new challenges. These are not only of an economic nature but also involve, for instance, rights to intellectual property, which in Cuba remains social. Today biotechnology represents Cuba’s third source of hard currency, with healthcare products and services representing a major island’s export potential. In the end we can say that the success of a small country with limited resources in a typically American-dominated, capital-intensive field like biotechnology is probably Cuba’s most remarkable and enduring achievement.

“The Cuban internationalists have made a contribution to African independence, freedom and justice, unparalleled for its principled and selfless character…Cubans came to our region as doctors, teachers, soldiers, agricultural experts, but never as colonizers. They have shared the same trenches with us in the struggle against colonialism, underdevelopment, and apartheid.” [Nelson Mandela’s address at the opening of the Southern African Cuba Solidarity Conference in Johannesburg in October 1995, The Nelson Mandela Foundation] (https://www.nelsonmandela.org/omalley/cis/omalley/OMalleyWeb/03lv02424/04lv02730/05lv03005/06lv03006/07lv03105/08lv03112.htm Last access March 15, 2016.)

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Notes

  1. 1.

    An expedient observed by one of us (A.B.) in Cuba around the mid-1990s, and typical of Cuban initiative, was to resort to much less expensive personal subscriptions by students to some journals when funds were available. These were later transferred to the faculty the following year.

  2. 2.

    The “Cuban Democracy Act” was a bill presented by US Congressman Robert Torricelli and passed in 1992 which prohibited foreign-based subsidiaries of US companies from trading with Cuba, travel to Cuba by US citizens, and family remittances to Cuba. The deeply controversial “Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity Act” of 1996 (commonly known as Helms–Burton Act) is a United States federal law which strengthens the US embargo against Cuba, extending the prohibition of trade with Cuba to companies doing business with it and to companies that use property Cuba had nationalized in 1958 from American companies. The US Government prosecuted Merck, the largest pharmaceutical firm in the US, for an exchange of scientific information with Cuba.

  3. 3.

    Infections cause one in six of all cancers worldwide, International Agency for Research on Cancer, 9 May 2012, http://www.iarc.fr/en/media-centre/iarcnews/pdf/TLO-INF-May2012-Eng.pdf (last access March 15, 2016). Jamal A., Centre M. M., DeSantis C., and Ward E. M., Global Patterns of Cancer Incidence and Mortality Rates and Trends, Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev. 19: 1893–907, August 2010, http://cebp.aacrjournals.org/content/19/8/1893.full (last access March 15, 2016).

  4. 4.

    http://oncubamagazine.com/economy-business/biocubafarma-unite-and-conquer/. Last access March 15, 2016.

  5. 5.

    http://www.cigb.edu.cu/extranet/portafolio/Business_Portfolio2014-2015.pdf. Last access March 15, 2016.

  6. 6.

    An insect pest that can cause damage to a wide range of vegetable crops.

  7. 7.

    Declan Butler, U.S.–Cuba row over insects goes to weapons meeting, Nature, 388, 21 August 1977, http://www.readcube.com/articles/10.1038/41846 (last access March 15, 2016). U.S. Denies Spraying Biological Agent Over Cuba, The New York Times, May 7, 1997, http://www.nytimes.com/1997/05/07/world/us-denies-spraying-biological-agent-over-cuba.html (last access March 15, 2016).

  8. 8.

    J. Miller, Washington Accuses Cuba of Germ-Warfare Research, The New York Times, May 7, 2002, http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/07/international/americas/07WEAP.html (last access March 15, 2016). Fidel Castro, CUBA: ‘Our weapons are morality, reason and ideas’, May 22, 2002, https://www.greenleft.org.au/node/27449 (last access March 15, 2016). Thinktank disputes Bush administration claims of biowar development in Cuba, centre for International Policy, May 2002, http://www.afn.org/iguana/archives/2002_05/20020508.html (last access March 15, 2016).

  9. 9.

    Wayne S. Smith, More Empty Charges, April 7, 2004, http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/2004-04-07/news/0404060324_1_cuba-biological-weapons-bolton-s-statement (last access March 15, 2016). L. and S. San Martin, CIA rebuffs John Bolton and Otto Reich claim of Cuba’s biological warfare capabilities, Miami Herald, April 09, 2005, http://havanajournal.com/politics/entry/cia_rebuffs_john_bolton_and_otto_reich_claim_of_cuba_biological_warfare_cap/ (last access March 15, 2016). For a full account see: NTI, Country Profiles, Cuba, Biological, http://www.nti.org/country-profiles/cuba/biological/ (last access March 15, 2016).

  10. 10.

    Cuba not only provides medical services to unserved and underserved communities within Venezuela (30,000 medical professionals, 600 comprehensive health clinics, 600 rehabilitation and physical therapy centres, 35 high technology diagnostic centres, 100,000 ophthalmologic surgeries, etc.), but also provides similar medical services in Bolivia on a smaller scale at Venezuela’s expense…. And to contribute to the sustainability of these health programs, Cuba will train 40,000 doctors and 5000 healthcare workers in Venezuela and provide full medical scholarships to Cuban medical schools for 10,000 Venezuelan medical and nursing students. … An additional recent agreement includes the expansion of the Latin American and Caribbean region-wide ophthalmologic surgery program (Operation Miracle) to perform 600,000 eye operations over ten years. … Cuban medical teams had worked in Guyana and Nicaragua in the 1970s, but by 2005 they were implementing their Comprehensive Health Program in Belize, Bolivia, Dominica, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Paraguay…. Because Cuba has been successful in developing health programs at home and has provided medical aid abroad, often under difficult circumstances, some donor countries are willing to provide financial support for Cuban medical assistance in third countries in what is called triangular cooperation. Germany has provided funding for Cuba to develop health programs in Niger and Honduras. France provided some funding to execute a health program in Haiti. Japan provided two million doses of vaccines to vaccinate 800,000 children in Haiti and U.S.$57 million to equip a hospital in Honduras where a Cuban medical brigade works. Multilateral agencies, such as the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) also finance medical services provided by Cuba for third countries. Both organizations provided funding for Cuba’s medical education initiatives. … By 2004, there were about 1200 Cuban doctors working in African countries, including in Angola, Botswana, Cape Verde, Côte d’Ivoire, Equatorial Guinea, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, Namibia, Seychelles, Zambia, Zimbabwe, and areas in the Sahara. … On the African continent, South Africa is the financier of some Cuban medical missions in third countries (Feinsilver 2006).

  11. 11.

    See for instance http://www.nnoc.info/latin-american-school-of-medicine/ (last access March 15, 2016) and Don Fitz, The Latin American School of Medicine today: ELAM, Monthly Review, 62 (10), 2011.

  12. 12.

    http://www.unesco.org/new/en/natural-sciences/science-technology/prospective-studies/unesco-science-report/unesco-science-report-2015/ Last access March 15, 2016.

  13. 13.

    ECLAC (Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean), Economic Survey of Latin America and the Caribbean. Challenges in boosting the investment cycle to reinvigorate growth. Santiago.2015. http://www.cepal.org/en/publications/38715-economic-survey-latin-america-and-caribbean-2015-challenges-boosting-investment Last access March 15, 2016.

  14. 14.

    http://www.abivax.com/en/com-abivax-title-medias/news-events/press-releases/23-creation-of-abivax-a-leader-in-therapeutic-vaccines-and-the-first-french-company-to-sign-an-exclusive-partnering-agreement-with-cuba-in-healthcare.html. Last access March 15, 2016.

  15. 15.

    http://www.fiercevaccines.com/story/abivax-eyes-49m-ipo-advance-cuban-made-hep-b-vaccine/2015-06-11 Last access March 15, 2016.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Florence, Sesto Fiorentino, Florence, Italy

    Angelo Baracca

  2. Department for Sustainability, ENEA, Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development, Casaccia Research Centre, Rome, Italy

    Rosella Franconi

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  1. Angelo Baracca
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  2. Rosella Franconi
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Correspondence to Angelo Baracca .

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Baracca, A., Franconi, R. (2016). Decisive Results … and New Challenges. In: Subalternity vs. Hegemony, Cuba's Outstanding Achievements in Science and Biotechnology, 1959-2014. SpringerBriefs in History of Science and Technology. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-40609-1_6

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