– A Legal Opportunity to Visit Cuba –
by Gail Reed
The MEDICC conference — A Healthy Cuba, Healthy World: Celebrating History, Culture, & Community — is slated for December 5–9/10 at the Meliá Santiago Hotel, with sessions at this venue and throughout what is widely regarded as Cuba’s most hospitable city. The event comes on the heels of two decades of work by the US nonprofit MEDICC, which fosters cooperation among the US, Cuban and global health communities.
The organizers take the WHO’s broad view of health and well being, reflected in a wide-ranging program that includes sessions and site visits related to environmental projects, slave rebellions, religious beliefs, cultural traditions, childhood education, global cooperation, plus health services and medical education.
“The reflects the holistic nature of health as understood by the WHO, and to attract a wide variety of US and other professionals,” says MEDICC Executive Director Dr. C. William Keck. “Thus, and in compliance with US law, we welcome the range of professionals whose areas of experience and expertise fall within the themes of the conference…. historians, health workers, artists, chefs, small business owners, musicians, lawyers, community organizers, activists in many fields (including the environment and rights in general), and practitioners of religions and cultural traditions, as well as public servants.”
A special opportunity this year, as participants choose among the activities that best fit their interests, is the chance to visit La Plata–once the mountain headquarters of Fidel Castro’s Rebel Army.
The meeting falls into the “professional research/professional meetings” category, one of 12 categories of permitted travel to Cuba for US citizens and residents by the US Department of the Treasury.
“This category also allows family members to join the primary professional attendees. Our hope is that all will actively help build a closer, more personal and positive relationship with Cuba and its people—and frankly, carry to Cuba the generous spirit that our own people still represent,” said Keck.
MEDICC was established in 1997, after its founders published the American Association of World Health’s report Denial of Food & Medicine: The Impact of the U.S. Embargo on Health and Nutrition in Cuba.
Since then, the organization has concentrated on four main programs: travel to Cuba for health professionals and their institutions (Gateways), leading to greater bilateral health cooperation; the peer-reviewed journal MEDICC Review, publishing research and perspectives by Cuban and developing-country authors, indexed by MEDLINE and other services; a national network involving leaders of US medically under served communities, who travel to Cuba for insights into how to improve health and health equity back home (Community Partnerships for Health Equity, now in 12 US cities); and support for students and graduates of Havana’s Latin American School of Medicine, which has now graduated nearly 30,000 socially committed physicians globally (MD Pipeline to Community Service, designed for the 200 US students and graduates, plus support for graduates in Honduras of the Garífuna indigenous communities, community-based Haitian graduates and Salvadoran graduates involved in their country’s first national study of the mysterious chronic kidney disease that has already felled 20,000 subsistence farmers).
In 2016, a MEDICC white paper was instrumental in President Obama´s October decision to broaden possibilities for collaborative medical research between US and Cuban centers, and to allow Cuban medications to flow through the FDA’s normal regulatory process
MEDICC leaders say that bilateral health cooperation is vital to Americans as well as Cubans, pointing to Cuban biotech advances against lung cancer and diabetic foot ulcers, as well as the need for joint work to reduce risks in disasters and the threat of epidemics.
More information:
* If participants register for the conference after reading this article in Cuba Business Report, they may use the promotion code CBR2018, for early bird discount after the September 24th deadline, extended through October 9, 2018.
Register here: http://medicc.formstack.com/forms/medicc_2018_conf_regform
