Global Security Newswire

Disputing U.S. charges that Havana is conducting a biological weapons program, Cuban officials have said their biotechnology program has resulted in the creation of new treatments against a wide range of diseases, the Dallas Morning News reported today (see GSN, Nov. 3).

Cuba has spent more than $1 billion on its biotechnology program, which has developed dozens of new treatments and vaccines, such as the world’s only vaccine against meningitis B, the Morning News reported. Cuban drugs are now sold in 50 countries, but not the United States because of the U.S. trade embargo against Havana. 

Researchers from a number of U.S. institutions, such as Harvard Medical School, have visited and trained at Cuban biotechnology centers, according to the Morning News. Such visits have become “much more difficult,” however, since U.S. President George W. Bush took office, said Gustavo Kouri, director of the Pedro Kouri Institute in Cuba.

“This year, Harvard was offering courses on dengue fever, on which Cuba has great experience. Four Cuban scientists were going to go, and there were 60 graduate students waiting for us. But only two were allowed to travel,” Kouri said.

U.S. officials, however, have alleged that Cuba is using its biotechnology program to develop biological weapons.

Last month, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Roger Noriega told a Senate committee that Cuba “has at least a limited, developmental, offensive biological weapons research and development effort and is providing dual-use biotechnology to other rogue states.”

Cuban officials have strenuously rejected such allegations, according to the Morning News. Some arms control experts have also said that Cuba would only hurt itself if it used its biotechnology efforts for weapons purposes.

“Revelation of a clandestine effort would seriously jeopardize Cuba’s international market aspirations. I can imagine no countervailing strategic benefit that might override that consideration,” said John Steinbruner, director for International and Security Studies at the University of Maryland (Tracey Eaton, Dallas Morning News, Nov. 19).