Thursday, July 2, 2020
Growing Interest in Cuba’s Medical Cooperation
By Orlando Oramas Leon on June 29, 2020
https://www.resumen-english.org/2020/06/growing-interest-in-cubas-medical-cooperation/
While the United States tries to disqualify Cuba’s international medical cooperation, the list of brigades sent by the island to fight the Covid-19 in different latitudes of the planet grows.
They are the members of the Henry Reeve Contingent, created in 2005 by Fidel Castro to face situations of serious epidemics and natural disasters. It is a legacy of the traditional practice of solidarity within the Cuban Revolution that did not hesitate to come to the aid of other peoples who suffered from earthquakes, floods and other calamities, such as dengue and Èbloa epidemics, as it did in three West African countries.
With such a history and wealth of experience, Havana received and continues to receive requests from various parts of the world for its health experts to help fight the pandemic, even though its specialists were already present in 59 countries.
That is why in the last three months the largest of the Antilles sent 38 health brigades to 31 countries and territories, a deployment that marks a new milestone in this Cuban practice of helping when needed. To confront the spread of the new coronavirus, 3,440 health workers have been mobilized from Cuba at 65 percent of who are women.
There are also 1,944 nursing graduates working in these contingents. The Cubans in white coats are in Venezuela, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Dominica and Suriname, among other countries in the region. They also work in Angola, Togo, Guinea-Bissau, South Africa, Cape Verde and the Republic of Guinea.
The presence of Cuban health experts is growing in nations of the Persian Gulf such as Oman, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, among others. They were ready to save lives in Italy and Andorra, but also in the Turks and Caicos Islands (overseas territories of the United Kingdom), and Martinique, under French sovereignty.
These are countries whose governments are historic allies of the United States, but who are not buying into Washington’s crusade against Cuba’s international health performance.
While Donald Trump accuses Havana of subjecting its doctors to human trafficking and even to forms of slavery, the reality is that there is growing interest in the world to have Cuba’s help in combating the pandemic and even in a post-Covid-19 stage.
While this is happening Washington threatens to retaliate against those who seek and use the medical cooperation of the small, blockaded neighbor, despite the havoc the pandemic is wreaking on the world.
Cuba has been emphatic that its health experts do not go out to look for work.
They travel voluntarily in compliance with an agreement by which in their homeland they their job is waiting for them when they return and they receive a full monthly salary, social security, and also receive a stipend.
Cuban cooperation has several modalities. In some cases, Cuba pays the stipend and the recipient country pays for local logistics. Others are through medical services and technical assistance, an export of services with a high humanitarian content and in defense of health and life.
The income from these services contributes to sustaining the Cuban health system, which is universal and free for the entire population. It is also used to purchase technology and inputs needed by this sector.
One Paradox of these times is that while the United States wants to cut off Cuban medical cooperation many young people from the US are studying and graduating with medical degrees in Cuba free of charge. This is happening at the Latin American School of Medicine, which since 1999 has trained nearly 30,000 doctors from around one hundred countries.
Source: Prensa Latina, translation Resumen Latinoamericano, North America bureau
To sign the petition to nominate the Henry Reeve Brigades for the Nobel Peace Prize go to, https://www.cubanobel.org/nobelcuba
Wednesday, July 1, 2020
‘If You Like Your Insurance, You Can Keep It’–Until You Can’t
Shahid Buttar and Rebecca Parson June 30, 2020
https://citizentruth.org/if-you-like-your-insurance-you-can-keep-it-until-you-cant/
Lack of healthcare is a death sentence.
(Common Dreams) In the first 10 Democratic debates, moderators asked candidates 21 questions about how they planned to pay for social programs like Medicare for All.
Yet when it came time to bail out corporations with trillions of dollars as part of coronavirus “relief” bills, suddenly the question of “How will you pay for it?” went up in smoke.
Meanwhile, 47.3 million workers have filed for unemployment, and the claim that “If you like your employer-based plan, you can keep it,” has been revealed for the fiction it is. How do those Americans keep their employer-based plan? They can’t. They’re unemployed.
Millions of Americans now face the loss of their health insurance. That’s in addition to the 27 million Americans who were uninsured before this crisis. Coverage is still available through the Affordable Care Act, but insurance companies are exploiting the increased demand, ratcheting up their premiums and deductibles so high that many are stuck with insurance plans they can’t afford to use.
You would think that during the worst pandemic in 100 years, as we teeter on the edge of another Great Depression, that politicians would be leaping at the opportunity to stem the tide and stave off further deaths by ensuring we all have healthcare. But no, of course not. Why? Because 99% of them, like our opponents Derek Kilmer (D-Wash.) and Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), are bought off by the health insurance industry. So bought off, in fact, that Kilmer cosponsored a stand-alone bill to bail out the lobbyists who lobby on behalf of his health insurance donors.
Instead, we’re faced with mass death.
One in seven Americans said they would not seek health care even with clear Covid-19 symptoms, due to concerns about their ability to pay for it. Among people with an annual household income below $40,000, more than 20% would choose to forgo treatment for financial reasons.
Lack of healthcare is a death sentence.
Shame on you, Congress: bailing out lobbyists. Bailing out corporations. Bailing out the insurance industry.
And leaving us out to dry.
The insurance industry isn’t “broken.” It’s working exactly as it was intended to: to profit off death by providing the least amount of care possible for the highest profit possible.
The fix is in, and the American people are paying the price: with their life.
It’s time for Medicare for All: a single-payer health care system that guarantees equal coverage to every American—without copays, deductibles, or premiums. 69% of voters now support Medicare for All.
Medicare for All is the moral choice. During a pandemic, “an injury to one is an injury to all,” because one sick person can infect countless more.
We need Medicare for All now.
Everybody in, nobody out.
‘Absolute Robbery’: Gilead Announces $3,120 Price Tag for Covid-19 Drug Developed With $70 Million in Taxpayer Support
https://citizentruth.org/absolute-robbery-gilead-announces-3120-price-tag-for-covid-19-drug-developed-with-70-million-in-taxpayer-support/
“Taxpayers provided funding for the development of this drug. Now Gilead is price-gouging off it during a pandemic. Beyond disgusting,” said Sen. Bernie Sanders.
(By: Jake Johnson, Common Dreams) Consumer advocates reacted with disgust Monday to an announcement by Gilead Sciences that it will charge U.S. hospitals around $3,120 per privately insured patient for a treatment course of remdesivir, a drug which has proven modestly effective at speeding Covid-19 recovery times.
Peter Maybarduk, director of Public Citizen’s Access to Medicines Program, called Gilead’s pricing—which works out to around $520 per dose for non-government buyers like hospitals—”an offensive display of hubris and disregard for the public” and slammed the Trump administration for failing to ensure that the price of a drug developed with substantial taxpayer support is affordable for all.
Maybarduk pointed to Institute for Clinical and Economic Review research showing Gilead could still make a profit by pricing remdesivir at $310 per course.
“Gilead has priced at several thousand dollars a drug that should be in the public domain. For $1 per day, remdesivir can be manufactured at scale with a reasonable profit,” Maybarduk said in a statement. “Gilead did not make remdesivir alone. Public funding was indispensable at each stage, and government scientists led the early drug discovery team. Allowing Gilead to set the terms during a pandemic represents a colossal failure of leadership by the Trump administration.”
Public Citizen estimated in a May report that U.S. taxpayers contributed at least $70.5 million to the development of remdesivir.
US taxpayers spent $70,000,000 developing this drug. This is an absolute robbery. https://t.co/6qSMOlmqWF
— Public Citizen (@Public_Citizen) June 29, 2020
Shortly after Gilead’s announcement, the U.S. Health and Human Services Department said it reached an agreement with the pharmaceutical giant to purchase more than 500,000 treatment courses of remdesivir for American hospitals.
The Wall Street Journal reported that the United States is “the only developed country where Gilead will charge two prices”—one for government buyers ($390 per dose) and one for non-government buyers like hospitals ($520 per dose). The typical remdesivir treatment course consists of around six doses.
Unlike the U.S., the Journal notes, the governments of other advanced nations “negotiate drug prices directly with drugmakers.”
Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas), chair of the House Ways and Means Health Subcommittee, said in a statement that “Trump’s refusal to stop pandemic profiteering with a stroke of a pen is a green light to other manufacturers to exploit this tragedy.”
Doggett said he is pressuring the Trump administration and Gilead to disclose the details of their agreement, including the sum the government paid for the 500,000 treatment courses of remdesivir.
On Twitter, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) condemned Gilead’s price-tag as “beyond disgusting.”
“Taxpayers provided funding for the development of this drug. Now Gilead is price-gouging off it during a pandemic,” said Sanders. “Coronavirus treatment must be free to all.”
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