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I’ve seen a lot of cynical responses to this. People are quick to forget that Cuba’s healthcare system & medical research are world leading. They have far more

I’ve seen a lot of cynical responses to this. People are quick to forget that Cuba’s healthcare system & medical research are world leading. They have far more physicians per person than any other country in the world [0]. [0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2645168/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2645168/

deleted 5y ago
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bufferoverflow 5y ago
They are not world leading. Number of doctors is not a metric of how good your medicine is. If you look at most good and great novel drugs and madical devices, they mostly are designed and made in the US or Europe. Mostly US.
- joejohnson 5y ago
  >> If you look at most good and great novel drugs and madical devices, they mostly are designed and made in the US or Europe. Mostly US. Citation needed!
  - bufferoverflow 5y ago
    The US is so far ahead of other countries, it invents more new novel drugs than the next 5 countries combined. And then poor countries enjoy the cheap generic versions of these drugs, basically subsidized by the US. https://qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-1a70c72f3bbb329d1dfee48ab185b97a https://qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-1a70c72f3bbb329d1dfee4...
    - onli 5y ago
      The US is incapable of making medications accessible to its own population. And not even willing to provide broad health insurance. That's not a country with a working or high quality medical system. Does the chart you link say anything about generic versions?
    - simfree 5y ago
      Pleas link to the original source rather than a picture on a CDN that may have been altered. Additionally, where is Cuba on this chart? Does a new, poorly performing pill (eg: a failed heart drug resubmitted to the FDA as an ED pill) counts as a newly discovered medication? https://www.ineteconomics.org/perspectives/blog/how-cuba-became-a-biopharma-juggernaut https://www.ineteconomics.org/perspectives/blog/how-cuba-bec...
    - celticninja 5y ago
      It is ahead in development but way behind in providing that healthcare to it's citizens. https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/field/infant-mortality-rate/country-comparison https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/field/infant-mortalit... Life expectancy in Cuba is higher than that of the US (72.5 vs. 71.9). Health workers have eliminated polio, tuberculosis, typhoid fever, and diphtheria. Malnutrition incidence amount 1-15 years olds is 0.7% compared with 5% in the US[0] [0]https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2315760/#:~:text=Life%20expectancy%20in%20Cuba%20is,with%205%25%20in%20the%20US https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2315760/#:~:text=Life%20expe....
      - bufferoverflow 5y ago
        If the US didn't subsidize all the other countries, you'd see a much different picture. It's easy to provide better healthcare, when someone else is paying for all R&D and manufacturing.
        celticninja 5y ago
        Let's be entirely honest here, the US could provide health care for all, in the same way the NHS operates in the UK. It is not the R&D costs that are preventing this, it is a very powerful medical insurance lobby that prevents it. And no, it is not easier to provide better healthcare, even without doing the R&D.A higher GDP is what enables better provision of healthcare and the US has the highest GDP and is in the top 10 per capita, Cuba is at 87th.
        sudosysgen 5y ago
        GDP PPP is more appropriate. Cuba has a fairly good PPP per capita GDP.
      - mariojv 5y ago
        Your 2nd source is from 1990 and is at odds with the CIA World Factbook, the first source, which says that current life expectancy at birth is 80.43 in US, 79.41 in Cuba: https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/field/life-expectancy-at-birth/country-comparison/ https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/field/life-expectancy... They're both basically similar in both years, which is astounding given the vastly higher material wealth of the US. Nice to know that both have increased a lot since 1990, though! I thought 72 sounded a bit young.
- CameronNemo 5y ago
  Why are patented drugs or medical devices your metric for a good health system. Those just sound like ways for people to profit from a sick population. If we had better health outcomes for citizens, I would cite that.
  - ryan93 5y ago
    All the science cuba used to develop the vaccine is american or european.
    - La1n 5y ago
      "If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants." -Newton All science is based on the work of others, and it always has been.
      - ryan93 5y ago
        Woah
  - runarberg 5y ago
    It seems like an awfully convenient metric too, just pick the thing that western nations are guaranteed to have and the poorer nations can’t have (and forget about China). I see a little chicken and egg problem here. This reminds of Stephen J. Gould’s Mismeasure of a Man. People would say that intelligence could be seen by measuring the size of the skull—knowing off course before hand that white people had the largest skull—and hence were the most intelligent (!) Until of course they actually measured the skulls properly, and found out it wasn’t any bigger, then they just moved on to the next metric that conveniently showed that white people were more intelligent.
jokethrowaway 5y ago
https://fee.org/articles/the-myth-of-cubas-glorious-health-care-system/ https://fee.org/articles/the-myth-of-cubas-glorious-health-c...
johnchristopher 5y ago
While I don't debate the efficacy of their healthcare system (wether it's a myth or not) I am surprised their medical research is on par. I would have thought these are two different fields without much overlap. Is it not ? And if it is not how can we explain a country with decades of embargo has an efficient and healthy research medical field ?
- bilbo0s 5y ago
  Maybe having nothing to steal, and vanishingly few opportunities for corruption in academia leads to people actually doing the research they are supposed to be doing because there's nothing else to do?
  - refurb 5y ago
    Yes, clearly Cuba has achieve the socialist paradise where human nature has been fundamentally changed.
    - sudosysgen 5y ago
      Yet here they are, with a standard of life incomparably higher than their neighbors, and an effective vaccine despite tiny resources. How do you explain that? Perhaps human nature is that people actually do useful work in some conditions when allowed to?
      - refurb 5y ago
        Higher standard of life than what neighbors? Your average Cuban is far poorer than their neighbors. Or are you arguing that keeping people in a state of poverty is a good way to motivate their altruistic tendencies?
        sudosysgen 5y ago
        What are the neighbors of Cuba? What are their GDP PPP per capita? The only countries next to Cuba that are richer are the US, the Cayman, and the Bahamas. Two of those don't even have enough population to make it into the 100 biggest cities.
kube-system 5y ago
Cuba's healthcare system is no slouch, but they're not world-leading. The ones who are world-leading started vaccinating their populations last year. I'm not sure what physicians per capita has to do with the quality of their healthcare system and research. Is Bhutan the world leader in agriculture? They have more farmers per capita than anywhere in the world.
- celticninja 5y ago
  Does the UD led embargo prevent them from important vaccines? This may be why they haven't started yet and have had to develop local vaccines. The fact they have 5 potential vaccines is significant, given that the rest of the world probably has produced 5 effective vaccines between them.
  - kube-system 5y ago
    > given that the rest of the world probably has produced 5 effective vaccines between them. China alone has 7. There's 18 vaccines already authorized for use in various places around the world. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_vaccine#List_of_authorized_and_approved_vaccines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_vaccine#List_of_autho...
    - celticninja 5y ago
      Effective is an important qualifier in my statement. https://www.businessinsider.com/china-vaccines-questioned-after-virus-surges-countries-using-them-2021-6 https://www.businessinsider.com/china-vaccines-questioned-af... China may have 7, but are they as effective as they claim?
      - kube-system 5y ago
        Chinese vaccines have infinitely more peer-reviewed data than the amount of peer-reviewed data we have to support the Cuban vaccines: zero. Either way, there's 11 other vaccines in use that aren't Chinese, still more than 5.
vo2maxer 5y ago
Before all this fawning over Cuba’s health care system, consider that they use their physicians abroad as revenue streams and propaganda to show the world how high their physicians per capita is. Those Cuban physicians are heavily restricted in what they are allowed to do [0]. Unless you have lived under a dictatorship as I did, you naively assume honesty and integrity from Cuba’s version of their “great” health care system. Ask the many Cubans in exile, how often they have to send life saving medication to their families on the island. [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/29/world/americas/brazil-cuban-doctors-revolt.html?referringSource=articleShare https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/29/world/americas/brazil-cub...
- draw_down 5y ago
  Wow, using physicians as a revenue stream sounds bad. Hope that doesn’t happen in my country where we pretty much constantly demonize Cuba.
- neither_color 5y ago
  Cuban healthcare is the left-wing version of "Mussolini made the trains run on time." Both are just idealizing the concept of a benevolent dictatorship ostensibly getting one thing right and ignoring all their other human rights violations.
  - runarberg 5y ago
    Not comparable. You are making some bold assumptions that people in the comments are using Cuba’s successful healthcare system as an excuse to justify the communist regime in Cuba. I see no such things. I see people simply pointing out that Cuba has a successful healthcare system irrelevant of the fact of how their government runs their country. The parable of Mussolini and the trains running on time was however such justification. I.e. “Mussolini’s fascist regime can be excused by the fact that he got the trains running on time”. Some people might be of the opinion that “Cuba’s authoritarian government can be excused by the fact that their healthcare system is successful“, but that is not the sentiment I’m getting from the posts here. Particularly not from your GP.
deleted 5y ago
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deleted 5y ago

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bufferoverflow 5y ago

They are not world leading. Number of doctors is not a metric of how good your medicine is. If you look at most good and great novel drugs and madical devices, they mostly are designed and made in the US or Europe. Mostly US.

joejohnson 5y ago
>> If you look at most good and great novel drugs and madical devices, they mostly are designed and made in the US or Europe. Mostly US. Citation needed!
- bufferoverflow 5y ago
  The US is so far ahead of other countries, it invents more new novel drugs than the next 5 countries combined. And then poor countries enjoy the cheap generic versions of these drugs, basically subsidized by the US. https://qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-1a70c72f3bbb329d1dfee48ab185b97a https://qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-1a70c72f3bbb329d1dfee4...
  - onli 5y ago
    The US is incapable of making medications accessible to its own population. And not even willing to provide broad health insurance. That's not a country with a working or high quality medical system. Does the chart you link say anything about generic versions?
  - simfree 5y ago
    Pleas link to the original source rather than a picture on a CDN that may have been altered. Additionally, where is Cuba on this chart? Does a new, poorly performing pill (eg: a failed heart drug resubmitted to the FDA as an ED pill) counts as a newly discovered medication? https://www.ineteconomics.org/perspectives/blog/how-cuba-became-a-biopharma-juggernaut https://www.ineteconomics.org/perspectives/blog/how-cuba-bec...
  - celticninja 5y ago
    It is ahead in development but way behind in providing that healthcare to it's citizens. https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/field/infant-mortality-rate/country-comparison https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/field/infant-mortalit... Life expectancy in Cuba is higher than that of the US (72.5 vs. 71.9). Health workers have eliminated polio, tuberculosis, typhoid fever, and diphtheria. Malnutrition incidence amount 1-15 years olds is 0.7% compared with 5% in the US[0] [0]https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2315760/#:~:text=Life%20expectancy%20in%20Cuba%20is,with%205%25%20in%20the%20US https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2315760/#:~:text=Life%20expe....
    - bufferoverflow 5y ago
      If the US didn't subsidize all the other countries, you'd see a much different picture. It's easy to provide better healthcare, when someone else is paying for all R&D and manufacturing.
      - celticninja 5y ago
        Let's be entirely honest here, the US could provide health care for all, in the same way the NHS operates in the UK. It is not the R&D costs that are preventing this, it is a very powerful medical insurance lobby that prevents it. And no, it is not easier to provide better healthcare, even without doing the R&D.A higher GDP is what enables better provision of healthcare and the US has the highest GDP and is in the top 10 per capita, Cuba is at 87th.
        sudosysgen 5y ago
        GDP PPP is more appropriate. Cuba has a fairly good PPP per capita GDP.
    - mariojv 5y ago
      Your 2nd source is from 1990 and is at odds with the CIA World Factbook, the first source, which says that current life expectancy at birth is 80.43 in US, 79.41 in Cuba: https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/field/life-expectancy-at-birth/country-comparison/ https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/field/life-expectancy... They're both basically similar in both years, which is astounding given the vastly higher material wealth of the US. Nice to know that both have increased a lot since 1990, though! I thought 72 sounded a bit young.
CameronNemo 5y ago
Why are patented drugs or medical devices your metric for a good health system. Those just sound like ways for people to profit from a sick population. If we had better health outcomes for citizens, I would cite that.
- ryan93 5y ago
  All the science cuba used to develop the vaccine is american or european.
  - La1n 5y ago
    "If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants." -Newton All science is based on the work of others, and it always has been.
    - ryan93 5y ago
      Woah
- runarberg 5y ago
  It seems like an awfully convenient metric too, just pick the thing that western nations are guaranteed to have and the poorer nations can’t have (and forget about China). I see a little chicken and egg problem here. This reminds of Stephen J. Gould’s Mismeasure of a Man. People would say that intelligence could be seen by measuring the size of the skull—knowing off course before hand that white people had the largest skull—and hence were the most intelligent (!) Until of course they actually measured the skulls properly, and found out it wasn’t any bigger, then they just moved on to the next metric that conveniently showed that white people were more intelligent.

jokethrowaway 5y ago

https://fee.org/articles/the-myth-of-cubas-glorious-health-care-system/ https://fee.org/articles/the-myth-of-cubas-glorious-health-c...

johnchristopher 5y ago

While I don't debate the efficacy of their healthcare system (wether it's a myth or not) I am surprised their medical research is on par. I would have thought these are two different fields without much overlap. Is it not ? And if it is not how can we explain a country with decades of embargo has an efficient and healthy research medical field ?

bilbo0s 5y ago
Maybe having nothing to steal, and vanishingly few opportunities for corruption in academia leads to people actually doing the research they are supposed to be doing because there's nothing else to do?
- refurb 5y ago
  Yes, clearly Cuba has achieve the socialist paradise where human nature has been fundamentally changed.
  - sudosysgen 5y ago
    Yet here they are, with a standard of life incomparably higher than their neighbors, and an effective vaccine despite tiny resources. How do you explain that? Perhaps human nature is that people actually do useful work in some conditions when allowed to?
    - refurb 5y ago
      Higher standard of life than what neighbors? Your average Cuban is far poorer than their neighbors. Or are you arguing that keeping people in a state of poverty is a good way to motivate their altruistic tendencies?
      - sudosysgen 5y ago
        What are the neighbors of Cuba? What are their GDP PPP per capita? The only countries next to Cuba that are richer are the US, the Cayman, and the Bahamas. Two of those don't even have enough population to make it into the 100 biggest cities.

kube-system 5y ago

Cuba's healthcare system is no slouch, but they're not world-leading. The ones who are world-leading started vaccinating their populations last year. I'm not sure what physicians per capita has to do with the quality of their healthcare system and research. Is Bhutan the world leader in agriculture? They have more farmers per capita than anywhere in the world.

celticninja 5y ago
Does the UD led embargo prevent them from important vaccines? This may be why they haven't started yet and have had to develop local vaccines. The fact they have 5 potential vaccines is significant, given that the rest of the world probably has produced 5 effective vaccines between them.
- kube-system 5y ago
  > given that the rest of the world probably has produced 5 effective vaccines between them. China alone has 7. There's 18 vaccines already authorized for use in various places around the world. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_vaccine#List_of_authorized_and_approved_vaccines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_vaccine#List_of_autho...
  - celticninja 5y ago
    Effective is an important qualifier in my statement. https://www.businessinsider.com/china-vaccines-questioned-after-virus-surges-countries-using-them-2021-6 https://www.businessinsider.com/china-vaccines-questioned-af... China may have 7, but are they as effective as they claim?
    - kube-system 5y ago
      Chinese vaccines have infinitely more peer-reviewed data than the amount of peer-reviewed data we have to support the Cuban vaccines: zero. Either way, there's 11 other vaccines in use that aren't Chinese, still more than 5.

vo2maxer 5y ago

Before all this fawning over Cuba’s health care system, consider that they use their physicians abroad as revenue streams and propaganda to show the world how high their physicians per capita is. Those Cuban physicians are heavily restricted in what they are allowed to do [0]. Unless you have lived under a dictatorship as I did, you naively assume honesty and integrity from Cuba’s version of their “great” health care system. Ask the many Cubans in exile, how often they have to send life saving medication to their families on the island. [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/29/world/americas/brazil-cuban-doctors-revolt.html?referringSource=articleShare https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/29/world/americas/brazil-cub...

draw_down 5y ago
Wow, using physicians as a revenue stream sounds bad. Hope that doesn’t happen in my country where we pretty much constantly demonize Cuba.
neither_color 5y ago
Cuban healthcare is the left-wing version of "Mussolini made the trains run on time." Both are just idealizing the concept of a benevolent dictatorship ostensibly getting one thing right and ignoring all their other human rights violations.
- runarberg 5y ago
  Not comparable. You are making some bold assumptions that people in the comments are using Cuba’s successful healthcare system as an excuse to justify the communist regime in Cuba. I see no such things. I see people simply pointing out that Cuba has a successful healthcare system irrelevant of the fact of how their government runs their country. The parable of Mussolini and the trains running on time was however such justification. I.e. “Mussolini’s fascist regime can be excused by the fact that he got the trains running on time”. Some people might be of the opinion that “Cuba’s authoritarian government can be excused by the fact that their healthcare system is successful“, but that is not the sentiment I’m getting from the posts here. Particularly not from your GP.

deleted 5y ago

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