Cuban Cholera Epidemic Spreading to the Entire Island

A cholera epidemic has been unofficially reported from Cuba. On June 3, 2012, government controlled media reported the appearance of an acute diarrheal disease affecting 53 persons in Manzanillo, Eastern Cuba. Three persons were said to have succumbed to the illness initially.

Independent medical sources in South Florida confirmed the military isolation of the Celia Sanchez hospital complex in Manzanillo and the Municipal Hospital in nearby Bayamo. The latest reports from the media via the Miami herald revel at least 85 cases until last Sunday June 8. Cuban independent journalist sources report the deaths at anywhere from five to 15. However, Cuban health workers have admitted that the number of suspected cases in Granma rose from 332 to 346 and more general cases of diarrhea and vomiting rose from 3,422 to 3,998 and that 110 persons have been hospitalized,

Despite Cuba’s well-organized health services, epidemiologic controls and civil defense system capable of rapidly mobilizing government agencies and citizens' groups, as it does for tropical storms and hurricanes, the Cuban cholera epidemic has spread to Western Cuba. Presently, unofficial sources have reported that five cases of cholera have been diagnosed in Havana. Thus, in a matter of days, cholera has now been reported from Caimanera near the US Naval Base in Eastern Cuba to Havana.

While the US Public health Service and CDC have not come out with any recommendations for travelers, British public health authorities in the Cayman Islands issued a caution against travel to Cuba. Also, U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen warned of potential dangers with regards to the presence of cholera in Cuba to travelers visiting the island form the United States.

But police kept up a heavy security presence at area hospitals and relatives were not allowed to visit patients with cholera, said Marquez. He was fired from his public health job after his wife, Tania de la Torre, became a human rights activist.

Cholera was declared to have been eradicated in Cuba no later than the early 1900s, but an ongoing outbreak in neighboring Haiti has killed more than 7,400 people and scores of Cuban doctors have worked there. A Florida woman and others in the Dominican Republic who visited Haiti came down with cholera in 2010 but survived.

Cuban health officials have also noted that there is currently an bout of dengue fever in the island. While dengue is endemic in Cuba and emerges periodically when the environmental circumstances are favorable for the mosquito vector, cholera is a new and dangerous epidemic that has placed the island and all points around it at risk of the contagion.

History

The first Doctors Day observance was March 30, 1933 in Winder, Georgia. Eudora Brown Almond, wife of Dr. Charles B. Almond, decided to set aside a day to honor physicians. This first observance included the mailing greeting cards and placing flowers on graves of deceased doctors. The red carnation is commonly used as the symbolic flower for National Doctors Day.On March 30, 1958, a Resolution Commemorating Doctors Day was adopted by the United States House of Representatives. In 1990, legislation was introduced in the House and Senate to establish a national Doctors Day. Following overwhelming approval by the United States Senate and the House of Representatives, on October 30, 1990, President George Bush signed S.J. RES. #366 (which became Public Law 101-473) designating March 30, 1991 as "National Doctors Day."Doctors Day marks the date that Crawford W. Long, M.D., of Jefferson, GA, administered the first ether anesthetic for surgery on March 30, 1842. On that day, Dr. Long administered ether anesthesia to a patient and then operated to remove a tumor from the man’s neck. Later, the patient would swear that he felt nothing during the surgery and wasn’t aware the surgery was over until he awoke.
[edit] Cuba
In Cuba, Doctors Day (December 3) commemorates the Birthday of Carlos Juan Finlay. Carlos J. Finlay (December 3, 1833 – August 20, 1915) was a Cuban physician and scientist recognized as a pioneer in yellow fever research. He was the first to theorize, in 1881, that a mosquito was a carrier, now known as a disease vector, of the organism causing yellow fever: a mosquito that bites a victim of the disease could subsequently bite and thereby infect a healthy person. A year later Finlay identified a mosquito of the genus Aedes as the organism transmitting yellow fever. His theory was followed by the recommendation to control the mosquito population as a way to control the spread of the disease.

ONE MORE DIFFERENTIAL FOR MR CHAVEZ ILLNESS: TERATOCARCINOMA

Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez is presently in Cuba preparing to undergo another surgical procedure for the illness that led me write a short op-ed piece here back in July 2011. As a matter of background, the onset of the illness was dated to mid-2011. Various pundits and commentators, some of them physicians, noted that a prostatic illness or cancer was unlikely, a colon malignancy was questioned, and a bladder malignancy did not fit the available history. Indeed, there has not been a single medical report or medical press conference on Mr. Chavez’s illness. Chavez himself has delivered or read some reports, but nothing too technical and usually incomplete. Others have proposed that Mr. Chavez is suffering from a sarcomatous tumor, either a benign or somewhat malignant sarcoma for example. But again, the management for this type of lesion often involves radiation first and surgery later. Mr. Chavez was treated with surgery and then repeated courses of chemotherapy that left him with a shaved scalp and generalized swelling. One further possibility can be added, again in view of the scarcity of official medical data. The tumor or illness at hand threatening Mr. Chavez health fits the clinical picture of a teratocarcinoma. The latter type of tumor has a number of cell lines, hence the importance of Mr. Chavez in pointing out that there were “células carcinógenas.” The original pathology probably revealed a low percentage of neoplastic, aggressive cells. The bulk of the tumor was removed and chemotherapy was expected to do away with the remainder malignant cells. However, at this time, Mr. Chavez likely has a recurrence of the tumor arising from the most malignant and aggressive neoplastic cells that escaped the previously applied treatment.Furthermore, the recurrence of such a type of tumor suggests that Mr. Chavez may be suffering from an immune disorder. Exactly, he may be infected with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). This in itself explains the secrecy of the entire process, the avoidance of Venezuelan health centers and medical professionals and the negation to go to Brazil for management and cancer treatment. In short, we propose to rule out TERATOCARCINOMA in the presence of HIV infection in the case of Venezuela’s president Hugo Chavez. Dr. Antonio Gordon

The Medical and Surgical Dilemma of Mr. Chavez, his medical counselor Fidel Castro and their prognosis

In the absence of a formal report from the medical team who treated President Hug Chavez of Venezuela, we are providing this information to explain his illness, its management and provide prognostic assessment devoid of political agendas.
President Chavez has been known to have blood in his bowel movements as far back as November 2010. He is routinely cared fro by the same team of physicians who have treated and follow Cuban dictator Fidel Castro. The medical team recommended to Chavez to undergo a colonoscopic exam. However, for reasons that are outside the scope of this report, he repeatedly refused. He refused to the point that the physicians caring for him discussed the matter with Fidel Castro. They asked the Cuban dictator to intervene and advise Chavez to accept the colonoscopic exam. Chavez did not accept the recommendation.
In June 2011, while in the island for various reasons, non medical, Chavez again was noted to have symptoms of colonic disease. Castro advised him again, and this time, Chavez accepted the colonoscopy.
The preparation for the procedure was uneventfully. Chavez drank all laxative solutions as directed. However, the study performed, colonoscopy, resulted in the finding of one or more polyps, some probably large, and biopsies were performed. The appearance of the polyps is not known, but after this “first surgery” the media reported that Chavez had no malignancy.
One day later, Chavez complained of increasing pain in the abdomen, fear ensued. A second examination was performed and a bowel perforation with an incipient pelvic abscess diagnosed. He was immediately taken back the operating room. At that time, the segment of colon ruptured, where the suspicious polyp was located, was removed totally. An end to end anastomosis was performed since the bowel had been cleaned for the previous operation (colonoscopy).
The surgical postoperative period was serious but no critical. Chavez improved steadily and soon thereafter began tweeting.
He then made his triumphal appearance in Caracas, and the rest is history.
In summary, Chavez has a complicated colocoscopic exam, an emergency partial colonic resection – where a very low grade malignancy may have been found – and a stormy but eventually uneventful recovery.
He does not have signs of metastatic disease, there was no tumor that perforated the colon or any hallow viscous, or pathology to suggest that his immediate future plans should be changed.
We challenge medical authorities in Cuba and Venezuela to reveal medical data relevant to this statement.

Where have the malanga (taro), cassava, rice, sweet potatoes and milk gone?

Ovidio Jimenez was born and lived near Sancti Spiritus in Cuba. He was 29 in 1959 and by then he had worked in his father’s small farm, 7.7 hectares, that is about half a caballeria.
They produced taro (malanga), cassava, rice and sweet potatoes. They also produced milk because they had three cows. They also had a horse and a plow.

A few days ago the Castro regime commemorated the signing of the first agrarian reform law of the revolution signed at La Plata in the Sierra Maestra in 1959. According to what was understood back then, the Cuban farms that did not produce and had an area larger than 20 caballerias (268.4 hectares) were to be expropriated in order to make them produce.

Well, as things were in the Cuban revolution, in 1962 the revolutionary communist government confiscated the half- caballeria farm form Ovidio and his father. The farm stopped production of taro, cassava, rice, sweet potatoes and milk. In 1963, Ovidio was taken prisoner charged with "cooperating" with rebels in the hills of the Escambray and relocated to Sandino in Pinar del Río.


He now lives in a trailer by Okeechobee and the Palmetto Expressway in the peninsula of Florida. What happened to the farm of Ovidio? How come there is no taro (malanga), , cassava (yuca) , rice, sweet potatoes and cow's milk? In summary, what is the achievement and great contribution claimed by the Cuban communists. What exactly is the legacy of the revolutionaries that, even today, they think they deserve honor, power and glory? Where is the achievement?

The ground is getting hotter in the island. What about the underground?

Yolanda left Cuba in 2000 and returned a week ago from Havana after visiting her family. She has visited Havana a few times in recent years. This trip, however, was different. It has left her "trulydestroyed." "Doctor, Cuba is over, done. Children are languishing in hunger. They go to school with a tiny bun of bread. " She indicates the size of the piece of bread with her hand. It’s about two inches in diameter. She goes one. "The older ones are falling down on the streets. No coffee is to be found. No milk either. No doctors or even the neighborhoods health posts are open. " The doctors are in hospitals. To get a medical certificate is hard for either a special diet or whatever. Some health care workers steal them from the hospital and make them “available” to the people. They get falsified. Raúl himself has said that the revolutionary coffee is made up of coffee beans mixed with with peas. Yolanda assures me that the peas are s[rayed with some real coffee. In the "Shopping" at the Carlos III in Havana, Yolanda could not use her credit cards. When she asked: Why? And the clerk responded "because Americans do not pay." Yolanda was losing patience. She replied: "You thieves, you are the ones who do not pay!"

Fidel, you perverted liar, Our Lone Star flag is not yours.

President Obama is the legitimate leader of the executive branch of the government of the United States today. The public has chosen him transparently. You, obsolete thinker of evil ideas and twisted reasoning, have not been elected by the Cubans, but by the Communists, who impressed by your terror, fearing the consequences or tired of the eternal struggle proposed by Marx, have followed you fanatically more than 50 years. But note, not a daypasses when a Cuban seeks asylum somewhere outside the island.

If you think that Our Lone Star flag, the flag that landed in Cárdenas in 1850, the flag that inspired and accompanied Marti and Maceo, is the flag of your revolution, let me disagree with your opinion, refute your reasoning and expose another lie form your lips. You have another flag, so show it and do not pretend to be so innocent.

And finally, when you write –or is written for you:"I paid, in fact, my services to the Revolution for a long time but never evaded risks or violated constitutional, ideological or ethical principles. I regret not having had more health to keep serving it."

You did not pay services to the revolution that engaged most Cubans in the late 1950’s to restore the constitution of 1940. You did not. What did you do? Well, you betrayed, derailed, dispersed and eliminated hopes that the revolution would restore the constitution..
You could never escape risks or violate constitutional, ideological or ethical principles. In fact, you were directly or indirectly supported by the two major poles of your time, the Soviet on the one hand and important sectors of the complex American society on the other. You did make ​​a constitution and then revised it several times, to justify yourself and your regimen, not to aspire to a greater justice and guarantee human rights. Finally, ethics must be understood in the light of the practice, that is that which is done or performed, and this in turn should be made freely and transparently in order to be appreciated. For you, freedom and transparency do not exist in your world. You do not allow independent journalism, or free access from Cuba to the internet, much less access to your prisons to the inspectors of the UN.