Tue, Nov. 18, 2003
BY TRACEY EATON
The Dallas Morning News
HAVANA - (KRT) - It was Cuba's $1 billion gamble - to train an army of scientists, develop a sprawling biotech industry and tackle every disease from cancer to AIDS.
The bet paid off, Cuban officials say. Since 1990, Cuban scientists have developed dozens of new treatments and drugs, including the world's only vaccine against meningitis B. And its products and technologies are now available in at least 40 countries, including Mexico, Iran, India and China.
But some U.S. officials aren't quite ready to applaud. They remain suspicious of Cuba's intentions and reiterate their charge that the socialist nation is running a secret germ warfare program.
Cuba "has at least a limited, developmental, offensive biological weapons research and development effort and is providing dual-use biotechnology to other rogue states," Roger Noriega, assistant secretary of state for the Western hemisphere, told a Senate committee in October.
Nonsense, Cuban officials say.
"It is scandalous that high-ranking officials in the U.S. government have to lie to that country's Congress to try to justify its discredited policy against Cuba," Cuba's Foreign Ministry said in a statement published in Granma, the Communist Party newspaper.
Cuban officials also contend that the Bush administration, which has not found evidence to back its charge that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, lacks credibility to make such an inflammatory claim.
Some others agree.
Much more...
http://www.sunherald.com/mld/sunherald/news/world/7290412.htmSo there's no excuse for not knowing the truth when the Bushistas and Dinos spew their propaganda against Cuba. For those who want to know more:
Cuban Biotechnology: A First Hand Report
http://www.cdi.org/pubs/cubanbiotech.pdf