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Yahoo!To the Editor:
Re “Viva Free Trade with Cuba!” Page A6, July 2, 2009.
In addition to the benefits from ending the embargo on Cuba listed by your reporter (family visits for some of us, fabulous cigars for all of us, and affordable vacations that include the rental of vintage red Thunderbird convertibles), there is one more that went unmentioned: world-class public health medical schools.
In contrast to the United States, where students have been learning what the biotech, medical engineering, and pharmaceutical companies want them to learn, Cuba’s medical schools will be a natural destination for the new crop of medical students who will be the foot soldiers of our country’s shift to universal health care.
Your readers may remember that in 1998, following the public health emergencies occasioned by severe hurricanes, Fidel Castro offered free medical education for low-income students from anywhere in the Americas, including the United States. Since then, the Latin American School of Medicine has become the world’s largest medical school and has graduated tens of thousands of students.
At a time when the mortality rate in the U.S. has been rising, and the average U.S. lifespan declining, the lifting of the Cuba embargo provides an invaluable opportunity to partner with the world expert on training doctors in inexpensive, preventative treatments for common illnesses. Cuba will be the perfect partner for training the doctors who will revolutionize health care in this country.
Meredith Kohr
Miami, Fla., July 3, 2009
Thanks for a wonderfully imaginative piece of work. Hope it will be possible to purchase printed copies of your great accomplishment.
The New York Times does quite a job going out of its way to either avoid mentioning Cuba at all, or to write about it in tendentious or hostile ways.
Comment on November 13, 2008 10:20 amHope you’ll keep this up, and that the “official” NYT won’t prevent you from updating this marvelous site regularly.