Cuba's Lung Cancer Vaccine

The sudden shift in US-Cuba relations presents the world with a tremendous opportunity in the field of medical research, not least in developing a promising vaccine for lung cancer.

CimaVax is a vaccine treatment for non-small cell lung cancer, targeting a particular protein, epidermal growth factor (EGF), that attaches itself to receptor proteins on the surface of cells causing them to grow and divide. Cancers can cause the body to produce excess EGF to enhance the pace of cell growth. CimaVax is designed to stimulate the body’s immune system, prompting it to produce antibodies in response to the increase in EGF, preventing the protein from attaching to cancer cell receptors.

In theory, this will stop the signal that tells cancer cells to grow, slowing the cancer's likely growth. After 25 years of work at the Centre for Molecular Immunology in Havana, the drug was made available in 2011, free of charge, to patients at clinics and hospitals across the island while it underwent a third set of trials. Researchers looked for signs of an immune response among lung cancer patients and have so far found patients who have taken CimaVax do better.

The patients tested lived slightly longer - on average, between 4 to 6 months - while symptoms, like coughing and breathlessness, were reduced. The trial results also suggest younger patients fare better. Twelve people under the age of 60, who had strong immune responses, lived 15 months longer than previously expected. Any conclusions drawn should come with the caveat that only a small sample of patients were tested.

The politics of CimaVax 

CimaVax’s importance to Cuba is underscored by the fact that lung cancer is the fourth leading cause of death in the country. It is also the leading cause of cancer death in the US.

The results of the first trials in Cuba has triggered follow-ups by researchers in Japan and some European countries, but until now it has been politically impossible for the United States to undertake such trials. In December 2014, however, President Obama and Cuban leader Raul Castro announced their move towards normalising relations. Since then, US delegates have visited Cuba for the first time in over 50 years and, last month, Governor of New York Andrew Cuomo visited Havana in a landmark event for the two countries.

At the same time, the Roswell Park Cancer Institute at the State University of New York closed a historic deal with Cuba’s Centre for Molecular Immunology which will allow Roswell Park’s researchers to bring CimaVax to the US, where it can be put before the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The drug can then be put through trials later this year before potentially entering the US health market. With Roswell Park’s financial resources, collaboration may prove beneficial to cancer sufferers around the world as alternative applications of the vaccine are explored.

“The chance to evaluate a vaccine like this is a very exciting prospect,” Roswell Park CEO Candace Johnson told WIRED. The company’s research team plan to explore the vaccine’s potential as a preventative measure in line with a standard vaccine that focuses on preempting conditions rather than minimising their symptoms. It may even be used to treat prostate, colon, breast, pancreatic and other cancers.

The Obama administration has so far relied on executive power to remove restrictions against the importation of medical and research equipment from Cuba. Congress are yet to decide whether or not the US will ultimately lift the trade embargo. If it is lifted, this could a groundbreaking opportunity for scientific and medical collaboration between the countries.

Doing more with less

Notwithstanding five decades of economic sanctions, Fidel Castro gave priority to medical research and biotechnology. “They’ve had to do more with less,” Dr. Johnson told WIRED. “So they’ve had to be even more innovative with how they approach things. For over 40 years, they have had a preeminent immunology community.”

Following a 1981 dengue fever outbreak which infected 350,000 Cuban citizens, Fidel Castro set up a Biological Front to focus the research efforts of different agencies. Mr. Castro dispatched Cuban scientists to Finland where they learned how to synthesise interferon, a virus-fighting protein, bankrolling their lab. By 1991, Cuba had become a major exporter of pharmaceutical products, at first to the USSR, then across Latin America and the developing world.

Today Cuba exports healthcare globally. Cuban health workers recently flew to West Africa to provide support in the multinational efforts to contain Ebola. The Cuban government also ensures the prices of the drugs the country's doctors offer are far below others on the market, in order to give developing countries a preferential option. As part of “south-to-south technology transfers” Cuba has provided support for China, Malaysia, India and Iran to set up pharmaceutical factories.

NOTE: In 2004, Cuba's biotech capacity was noted by American critics, such as UN ambassador John Bolton, as a potential basis for developing "biological weapons". The Cuban government strongly denied these accusations and invited US scientists to observe the laboratories.

As a result of these efforts, Cuba receives $8 billion a year in foreign exchange and financial support from the World Health Organisation. Export of medical services has not just brought in revenue - it has led the Castro brothers to grant over 100 patents to scientists and, in effect, open up the country to intellectual property rights. The prospect of normalised relations between Cuba and the United States thus holds enormous potential for the scientific community.

This article was originally written for The World Weekly on May 14, 2015.

No Clean Hands.

Q: How big a part did violence pay in moving ANC forward?

A: These things are always difficult to gauge, but it's worth noting that pretty much every means of non-violent struggle were exhausted over many years. In my view Nelson Mandela was justified in shifting gears in the early 60s and founding the Spear of the Nation to initiate a campaign of sabotage. That's not to say every single action was justified, and indeed Mandela didn't simply believe that the resistance was to be fought by all means available. He was an opponent of car-bombing for example, precisely because it would degrade the movement. It's also the case that Mandela was very careful to select government targets, as well as industrial and agricultural targets for sabotage. So this wasn't indiscriminate civilian bloodshed for the most part. Then we have to put the struggle in its regional context.

The decolonization of Africa was still underway when Mandela undertook the new approach, but the liberation of Spanish and Portuguese colonies was stalled until the Fascist regimes began to collapse in the late 60s and early 70s. The primary force of counter-revolution in the region was Apartheid South Africa and it quickly moved to try and prevent its neighbours from achieving independence. The CIA was heavily involved of course. South Africa occupied Namibia and intervened in Angola and Mozambique, as well as organising bombing raids, coups and death squads in a lot of other places. We're talking 1.5 million dead plus $60 billion in damage from 1980 to 1988. Cuba pledged a great deal of support for the rebels in Angola, Namibia as well as the ANC. In fact, the ANC along with the MPLA and SWAPO fought alongside one another at Cuito Cuanavale in what Nelson Mandela called "a turning point for the liberation of our continent and my people."

I don't claim expert knowledge on this. My South African friends will probably have a lot to add on this. I would stress the demands of historical conditions and how quickly those demands can change. Gandhi's approach worked because the British Empire was crippled. You couldn't say that about the South African state in 1961.

Afterthoughts: Eventually the South African state was effectively crippled through the boycott campaigns and the international sanctions imposed on the country as opposition gradually became the predominant position in the world. Once the US had given up on Apartheid the South African regime had no choice but to dismantle the system of white supremacy. The next best scenario for the Afrikaner elite in South Africa was a compromise where the black masses would be given suffrage, while overwhelming economic power would remain in the hands of the white minority. The business class realised this by the late 1980s and began meeting secretly with Oliver Tambo and others in places like Zambia. It took the political class a bit longer to reach the same conclusion. Once free Nelson Mandela and the ANC negotiated away the possibility of economic justice, possibly out of fear of what the white generals might do if the ANC opts for significant social and economic reform. In this way we might understand Nelson Mandela as a transitional figure in an unfinished revolution.

The Bullet that Saved JFK.

To many, John F Kennedy was a hero. The pretensions of the Great Man are always a worthwhile target and the Kennedy cult is one such prime case. The legend of John F Kennedy is a tightly inflated balloon that has been wafting across the discourse since the young man defeated Nixon in 1960. Fifty years since the man was gunned down under circumstances of considerable fixation the time is more than ripe to take aim at that balloon and fire. Kennedy is not remembered for the details of his foreign policy, his efforts in the subversion of Latin American governments, his anti-Communist crusade against Cuba and his escalation of the Vietnam war. And yet there is a plethora of theories floating along with the personality cult.

The trouble with conspiracy theories in general is the tendency to apply Occam's Razor in reverse, slitting through all the simple answers to the end. The preference is always for building a vast and intricate theory. If there is a simple explanation, or a rational explanation, then it is to be rejected as a rule in favour of unfounded speculation of the wildest variety. It can lead anywhere after that point of no return. Like the conspiracy theorists who believe the attacks on the World Trade Centre were either achieved with a) US missiles or b) the attacks were a hologram. Once you've accepted such a proposition you're left with the problem of where all those people - in the planes, in the towers, in the Pentagon - have really gone. So why not suppose they were all gassed in Chicago? Or taken out to Nebraska to be shot on orders from Cheney? The degrees of nuttiness know no bounds.

We find the same with Lee Harvey Oswald. There are inconvenient facts, such as the fact that Oswald owned the guns involved in the events of November 22nd 1963 - not just the assassination, but the murder of a police officer as well - and the fact that the paraffin test at least demonstrated that he had fired a hand gun (though not the rifle, which doesn't discharge a residue). Why would an innocent man shoot a police officer as he ran out of a building? Of course, to answer such a question one first has to be open to a certain array of possibilities. If you have already decided that the captured shooter was a 'patsy' for a high-level conspiracy to ratchet up the war in Vietnam, then why bother? There are more important matters at hand. For instance, if the Mafia was involved (and this goes for the CIA too) then why would Oswald be left to try and hail a taxi to escape from the scene? Ignorance is sometimes all too invincible. Nevertheless, the assumptions behind these theories are always particularly revealing.

The first possibility to be written-off from the outset by the 9/11 'Truth' movement is that Arabs are perfectly capable of hatching such a complex plan and carrying it out. That has a lot in common with the tradition of European anti-Arab racism. Just as Western historians couldn't comprehend that the Arabs could have raced to the straits of Gibraltar from the Middle East and crossed over to the Iberian peninsula. The racist assumption that the Arabs are a race so primitive as to be incapable of a modicum of self-defence ran right into the mid 20th Century. It was a convenient myth for the European empires. It was with the emergence of General Nasser and the crisis of Suez that the Arabs were recognised as capable fighters. After that the new myth would soon be that the Arabs are bloodthirstily savages. The 9/11 'Truthers' simply revert to the early racial myth.

The JFK cult has assumptions no less worthy of unpicking. Jack Kennedy was fortunate to die before the 1964 election. The bullet preserved the memory of a charming and glamorous Kennedy, a fallen angel and martyr for American liberalism. It is all too outlandish to believe that the Kennedy administration posed a serious threat to the intelligence sector, the military-industrial complex and the capitalist system in any way. Really the system should work, it's merely an aberration - if only Kennedy hadn't been shot by perpetrator X (take your pick: the Mafia, Castro, Johnson, the CIA, the anti-Castro Cubans, the rogue CIA and so on to infinite regress). It is a reassuring vision for someone who doesn't really believe social change is possible and doesn't really want to pursue it. It reaffirms passivity and so it should. These theories always seem to arise around events which threaten the pretensions of invincible and invulnerable power.

The fact that Kennedy was a Cold War liberal who saw withdrawal from Vietnam as only acceptable after victory - a victory he may have believed would come in 1965 - which puts him on the same wavelength as Lyndon B Johnson and Richard Nixon. He thought it was fine to invade Cuba and snuff out its push towards independence. When the CIA botched the invasion, Kennedy was angry at the prospect of a tarnished record for his time in office. It was the failure of the mission, not the mission  itself, which was the problem. Kennedy took responsible publicly, and then fired Allan Dulles. This was when he made his famous remark expressing a willingness to "shatter the CIA into a thousand pieces". Of course, the Emperor would be furious when his minions fuck up what should have been a routine operation (or worse, as they were defeated in the case of the Bay of Pigs).

As for the rest of the record: Kennedy cut taxes for the wealthiest slice of American society, bringing down the New Deal rate of income tax from 90% to 70%; while pouring yet more cash into the war budget and had mostly empty gestures on civil rights. He was a strident anti-Communist who spent his spare moments sketching the uniforms of soldiers. The conservative writer Ira Stoll has reviewed the Kennedy Presidency in time for the 50th year since the Great Man was vanquished. The Stoll thesis is that the Kennedy legacy ought to belong to conservative hagiographers and not their liberal counterparts. It was the bullet that saved the Kennedy myth. If Kennedy had lived we would remember him as an ugly war criminal, the Vietnam war would have robbed him of his angelic innocence and Addison's disease would have done the rest.

Loving the Bomb!

The Cuban revolution of 1959 was met with a three-pronged assault from the colossus less than 100 miles north. A campaign of assassination attempts against the leadership combined with economic strangulation and terrorist attacks. It was in 1961 that Fidel Castro finally declared Cuba to be in the grips of a socialist revolution worth defending with rifles. This was just after the US had bombed two Cuban airports. It wasn't over yet, the Bay of Pigs came soon after and it was over in about 72 hours. The Americans were humiliated and the Cubans quickly exchanged the people they had captured for food and medicine. It wasn't forgotten. After that the Commandante climbed into bed with the Russian politburo and reluctantly agreed to park nuclear weapons on the island as a deterrent to another US invasion. The governing party became the Cuban Communist Party within a few years and the regime began to follow the Soviet model of really existing socialism.

Fidel Castro had reluctantly accepted nuclear weapons from Russia in order to secure Cuba from another invasion and to strengthen the socialist camp. In his typical flamboyance Fidel would have preferred a triumphant display, perhaps a parade of his newfound nuclear might through the streets of Havana. Instead the CIA discovered the weapons from the air and the world was soon on the brink of a nuclear holocaust. This is no exaggeration, as we now know; it was the most dangerous moment in history for our species. The bureaucrats were well aware that this was the case at the time. If it wasn’t for a Russian submarine commander who countered the orders of two other commanders then nuclear-tipped warheads would have been fired at the US. Two of them had made the decision under the assumption that a war had begun, they were under attack from a US destroyer at the time. Thankfully the decision was overruled by Vasili Arkhipov. That could have been the end.

If the Russians had let-off the warheads it would have provoked a full nuclear response from the US. Moscow would have been taken out and then London would have been taken out in retaliation, it would have escalated from there. Near total annihilation in a matter of minutes. This case demonstrates the incredible danger of living in a world of nuclear weapons, we're not as in control of these radioactive toys as we like to think. By and large it is automated systems which have the power to land a mushroom cloud on the horizon. There have been many times where we have come close to the edge, but there has always been someone around to step in. Sooner or later there isn't going to be a human intervention to save the day. It may only be a matter of time as Chomsky reminds us. Disarmament isn't just the moral action at this point, it's vital for the chances of human survival in the long-term. There's no point making sure that we destroy what's left after a nuclear strike takes us out.

A deal was soon cut, the yanks shipped out the nukes they had in Turkey and the ruskies did the same in Cuba in return for a promise that the US would never invade Cuba again. JFK wanted to look hard and refused, but secretly had the missiles in Turkey removed. Of course, he was aware that the missiles were actually obsolete and were about to be replaced by Polaris in the Mediterranean. Cuba was just another square on the chessboard in these manoeuvres and the Commandante wasn’t consulted in any of this. But neither were the people living in Russia or the United States for that matter. With all this in mind Lee Harvey Oswald decided to take-out Kennedy in order to take the heat off of Cuba. Before the year was out Oswald had pulled the trigger and saved the Kennedy legacy in doing so. It saved his criminal Presidency, secured the myth of a vanquished hero and wiped away everything he had done. The internet is stuffed with garbage theories about the man’s death, a lot less is focused on the numerous conspiracies to kill Fidel Castro.

It wasn't over between the US and Cuba, but the attempts to destroy the regime in Havana haven't come close to a nuclear holocaust since 1962. Instead there have been 638 known attempts to murder Fidel Castro, as of 2006 anyway, with the last attempts being made after the fall of the Berlin Wall. The CIA has yet to get their man, clearly they're much better at running drugs. That being said the CIA did manage to put to death Che Guevara in a most cowardly fashion. But that wasn't enough, was it? What would be enough? Only the return of Cuba into the hands of the American ruling-class and underworld. Anything less is an insult. So the Cuban economy had to be strangled with an embargo which is still going strong today. The Cubans turned to Russia and then they had to go it alone after the Soviet Union fell apart like the house of cards it was. Remarkably the Castro regime has survived and the major achievements of the Cuban revolution have been safeguarded.

The command model of the economy has been abandoned to some extent and we may well see a Chinese style of capitalism emerge on the island. There has yet to be a free election on the island, a free press has not been allowed to spring up and the Castro brothers have run the show for over 50 years. This isn't to say that the country should be ripped open to American power once again. The US government keeps more political prisoners in Cuba than the Castro regime actually does. There aren't thousands and thousands of homeless people roaming the streets, nor do millions go hungry every year. That's thanks to the efforts of the Cuban government to localise the production of food. Since the collapse of really existing socialism there has been a return to corruption and prostitution has re-emerged. But it has to be said that there aren't any drug cartels in Cuba and the island is certainly no abattoir unlike Colombia and Mexico.