Fwd: Castro's speech to the World Health Organization (fwd)
Lars Ekman/Lise Stensrud (stenekm@online.no)
Thu, 21 May 1998 22:06:27 +0200 (MET DST)
>Return-Path: <owner-wsn@csf.colorado.edu>
>Date: Thu, 21 May 1998 15:19:27 -0400
>Reply-To: chriscd@jhu.edu
>Sender: owner-wsn@csf.colorado.edu
>From: christopher chase-dunn <chriscd@jhu.edu>
>To: WORLD SYSTEMS NETWORK <wsn@csf.colorado.edu>
>Subject: ÆFwd: Castro's speech to the World Health Organization (fwd)Å
>X-Listprocessor-Version: 8.0 -- ListProcessor(tm) by CREN
>
>
>Received: from jhuml1.hcf.jhu.edu (jhuml1.hcf.jhu.edu Æ128.220.2.86Å) by
jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu (950413.SGI.8.6.12/950213.SGI.AUTOCF) via ESMTP id
TAA24212 for <chriscd@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu>; Tue, 19 May 1998 19:23:27 -0400
>Received: from ds1.gl.umbc.edu (ds1-fe2.gl.umbc.edu)
> by jhmail.hcf.jhu.edu (PMDF V5.1-10 #18666)
> with ESMTP id <01IX88XDZCLABHAFRV@jhmail.hcf.jhu.edu> for
> chriscd@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu; Tue, 19 May 1998 19:21:18 EDT
>Received: from umbc10.umbc.edu (chatski@umbc10.umbc.edu Æ130.85.3.14Å)
> by ds1.gl.umbc.edu (8.8.8/8.8.7) with ESMTP id TAA10974; Tue,
> 19 May 1998 19:23:12 -0400 (EDT)
>Received: from localhost (chatski@localhost) by umbc10.umbc.edu (8.8.8/8.8.6)
> with SMTP id TAA16723; Tue, 19 May 1998 19:23:11 -0400 (EDT)
>Date: Tue, 19 May 1998 19:22:59 -0400 (EDT)
>From: chatski carl <chatski@gl.umbc.edu>
>Subject: Castro's speech to the World Health Organization (fwd)
>X-Sender: chatski@umbc10.umbc.edu
>To: Ann R Chist <fnb@icaer.org>
>Message-id: <Pine.SGI.3.96.980519183755.28064A-100000@umbc10.umbc.edu>
>MIME-version: 1.0
>Content-type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
>X-Authentication-warning: umbc10.umbc.edu: chatski owned process doing -bs
>
>"Who can save our species? The blind, uncontrollable law of
>the market? Neo-liberal globalization, alone and for its own sake,
>like a cancer which devours human beings and destroys nature? That
>cannot be the way forward or at least it can only last for a brief
>period in history." ---President Castro, May 14th 1998
>...*
>According to the calculations of renowned economists, the world
>economy grew six-fold and the production of wealth and services grew
>from less than five trillion to more than twenty-nine trillion
>dollars between 1950 and 1997. Why then is it still the case that
>each year, 12 million children under five years of age die -- that is
>to say 33,000 per day -- of whom the overwhelming majority could be
>saved?
>
>Nowhere in the world, in no act of genocide, in no war, are so many
>people killed per minute, per hour and per day as those who are
>killed by hunger and poverty on our planet -- 53 years after the
>creation of the United Nations.
>
>The children who die and could be saved are almost 100% poor and of
>those who survive, we must ask why 500,000 are left blind every year
>for lack of a simple vitamin which costs less than a pack of
>cigarettes per year? Why are 200 million children under five years
>of age undernourished? Why are there 250 million children and
>adolescents working? Why do 110 million not attend primary school
>and 275 million fail to attend secondary school? Why do two million
>girls become prostitutes each year? Why in this world -- which
>already produces almost 30 trillion dollars worth of goods and
>services per year -- do one billion 300 million human beings live in
>absolute poverty, receiving less than a dollar a day -- when there
>are those who receive more than a million dollars a day? Why do 800
>million lack the most basic health services? Why is it that of the
>50 million people who die each year in the world, whether adults or
>children, 17 million -- that is approximately 50,000 per day -- die
>of infectious diseases which could almost all be cured -- or, even
>better, be prevented -- at a cost which is sometimes no more than one
>dollar per person?
>
>How much is a human life worth? What is the cost to humanity of the
>unjust and intolerable order which prevails in the world? 585,000
>women died during pregnancy or in childbirth in 1996, 99% of them in
>the Third World, 70,000 due to abortions carried out in poor
>conditions, 69,000 of them in Latin America, Africa and Asia? Apart
>from the huge differences in the quality of life between rich and
>poor countries, people in rich countries live an average of 12 years
>longer than people in poor countries. And even within some nations,
>the difference in life expectancy between the richest and poorest is
>between 20 and 35 years. It is really sad to think that just in the
>area of maternal and post-natal services, in spite of the efforts of
>the WHO and UNICEF over the last 50 years, the number of deaths from
>lack of medical services has been 600 million children and 25 million
>mothers who could have survived. That would have required a more
>rational and more just world.
>
>In that same post-war period, in the area of military expenditure,
>30 trillion dollars were spent. According to UN estimates, the cost
>of providing universal access to basic health care services would be
>25 billion dollars per year -- just three percent of the 800 billion
>dollars which are currently devoted to military expenditure -- and
>this after the end of the Cold War.
>
>There is no let up in arms sales, which have the sole purpose of
>killing, while the medicines which should be provided to save lives
>become increasingly expensive. The market in medicines in 1995
>reached 280 billion dollars. The developed countries, with 14.6% of
>the world's population -- 824 million inhabitants -- consume 82% of
>the medicines. The rest of the world -- 4 billion 815 million people
>-- consume only 18%.
>
>Prices of medicines are prohibitive for the Third World, where only
>the privileged sectors can afford them. The control of patents and
>markets by the large transnational companies enables them to raise
>those prices as much as ten times above their production costs. Some
>of the latest antibiotics are priced at 50 times their production
>cost.
>
>And the world's population continues to grow. We are now almost six
>billion and growing at a rate of 80 million per year. It took two
>million years to reach the first billion people, a hundred years to
>reach the second billion, and 11 years to reach the last billion. In
>50 years, there will be four billion new inhabitants on the planet.
>
>Old illnesses have returned and new ones are appearing: AIDS, the
>Ebola virus, Anthrax, BSE or mad cow disease -- more than thirty
>according to the specialists. Either we defeat AIDS or AIDS will
>destroy many Third World countries. No poor person can pay the
>10,000 dollars per person each year that current treatments cost --
>which merely prolong life without actually curing the disease.
>
>The climate is changing. The seas and the atmosphere are heating
>up. The air and water are becoming contaminated. Soil is eroding,
>deserts are growing, forests are disappearing and water is becoming
>scarce. Who can save our species? The blind, uncontrollable law of
>the market? Neo-liberal globalization, alone and for its own sake,
>like a cancer which devours human beings and destroys nature? That
>cannot be the way forward or at least it can only last for a brief
>period in history. The WHO is fighting heroically against these
>realities and it also has the duty of being optimistic.
>
>As a Cuban and a revolutionary, I share their optimism. With a
>current infant mortality rate of 7.2 per thousand live births during
>the first year; a doctor for every 176 inhabitants -- which is the
>highest level in the world -- and a life expectancy of more than 75
>years of age, Cuba has fulfilled the WHO Health for All program for
>the year 2000 since 1983 -- in spite of the cruel blockade it has
>suffered for almost 40 years, in spite of being a poor, Third World
>country. The attempt to commit genocide against our country has only
>made us redouble our efforts and increased our will to survive. The
>world can also fight and win.
>
>Thank you very much.
>-------------------------------------------------------
>
> Castro Slams Drug Companies
>
>By Geir Moulson
>Associated Press Writer
>Thursday, May 14, 1998; 10:42 a.m. EDT
>
>GENEVA (AP) -- Cuban President Fidel Castro painted a gloomy
>picture today of a developing world condemned to high death rates,
>partly because major drug companies charge inflated prices for
>medicines.
>
>In an impassioned speech at a session celebrating the 50th
>anniversary of the U.N health agency, Castro also condemned
>growing global trade liberalization and ``an economy that grows by
>itself and for itself, like a cancer.''
>
>He decried the U.S. economic embargo against his island nation,
>but said the sanctions have only ``led to the multiplication of
>our strengths and our will to survive.''
>
>Castro also deplored high death and disease rates in developing
>countries, and pointed to inflated drug prices by pharmaceutical
>companies as the culprit.
>
>``The control of patents and markets by the big transnational
>companies allows them to raise prices over 10 times above
>production costs,'' Castro said.
>
>``Either we defeat AIDS, or AIDS will devastate several Third
>World countries,'' Castro said.
>
>The 70-year-old Cuban leader was given a standing ovation as he
>entered the hall of the 191-nation World Health Assembly -- the
>annual meeting of the World Health Organization.
>
>During a weeklong visit, Castro will also address the World Trade
>Organization when leaders gather to mark half a century of the
>global trading system, born at a meeting in Havana, Cuba, in 1948.
>
>The Cuban leader and first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton were
>staying in the same hotel today, but the hotel manager said any
>clash of ideologies would be ``no problem.''
>
>``Everyone is in their own place and it works very well,'' Herbert
>Schott, director of Geneva's luxury Hotel Intercontinental, told
>The Associated Press.
>
>The hotel, which has hosted Mrs. Clinton and the U.S. president on
>a previous visit to Geneva, is favored by security services for
>their ability to protect it.
>
>
>*--- 2 Introductory paragraphs
>All praise to the World Health Organization, which together with
>UNICEF, has helped to save the lives of hundreds of millions of
>children and millions of mothers, which has relieved the suffering
>and saved the lives of many more millions of human beings.
>
>These two institutions -- together with the Food and Agriculture
>Organization, the United Nations Development Program, the United
>Nations Conference on Trade and Development, the World Food Program,
>the United Nations Population Fund, UNESCO, and other organizations
>so bitterly opposed by those who would like to erase from the face of
>the earth the noble ideas which inspired the creation of the United
>Nations - - have made a decisive contribution to the establishment of
>a universal awareness of the serious problems of the world today and
>the great challenges which we have before us.
>
>