the tweet this post is a screenshot of: https://xcancel.com/EmbaCubaUS/status/2060376971247337849
the vaccine it is about: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racotumomab (trade name Vaxira)
Imagine where we’d be if America wasn’t working its ass off trying to make Cuba fail. The Cuba story in general, mainly the stuff they’ve been able to accomplish regarding living standards, in spite of the gigantic blockade that the largest economic and military power has imposed on them, has convinced me that whatever their system is, it’s far superior to capitalism.
Yeah I dream of an alternate history where the US looked at the Cuban revolution as a just act of self defense and democracy, and we supported our neighbors despite our economic differences.
Ho Chi Minh appealed to the United States’ supposed values of freedom and self-determination when he basically straight up asked for the Americans’ help liberating Vietnam from the French. Plenty of alternate histories to go around if the US doesn’t guarantee shooting itself in the foot 100% of the time
Yep, Vietnam is another I wish we’d just chosen to be friends with
One of the most disturbing truths of the internet age is that we could have already had a utopia on Earth by now. It’s so easy to look back at the past and see how much better it could have gone if just a few tiny things had gone different.
But those inventions are still waiting to be discovered, and the social progress can still be had. Whenever we start building utopia, in hindsight it will look like we started at our darkest hour.
Yeah, the embargo has kind of backfired in that way, by giving us an example of a self sufficient socialist state that can survive (and in some cases thrive) despite being completely cut off from the US, and much of the West, for 60+ years
Cuba Libre is a reactionary chant used by the Batista exiles.
Let’s pretend that the title is an irony on that fact.
It’s also a tasty cocktail
Yeah, I don’t believe any medical breakthroughs until they are widely used. Also, with the emojis, this feels like it it was written by an AI.
From the Wikipedia page, it seems like a fairly normal cancer vaccine. The thing limiting these in North America and Europe is that you can’t legally do drug trials on people until you’ve tried all the approved medicines for that condition first, as trial drugs might do nothing and might cause side effects, and the placebo control group would literally not be getting any treatment. By the time cancer patients have tried all the existing treatments, they’re usually either already dead, or already cancer-free, so the only trial participants left are already nearly dead, and likely to keel over immediately no matter how good the trial drug. That means things that drug companies have known will work for over a decade still aren’t available, and once they are, they’ll need to be unreasonably expensive just to break even.
Either this one has finally got over these kinds of hurdle after years of effort, or Cuba’s been doing trials that wouldn’t be legal elsewhere. Even if they have, it’s not necessarily a criticism - if a trade embargo stops you accessing lots of medicines, then you need to get through fewer of them before you’ve tried everything available and can start trial drugs. Once it’s fully approved, it won’t need to be expensive, as the research costs can be offset against the cost savings from treating patients, as everything’s state-funded.
I’m surprised there IS a cuban embassy to the US after everything.
In his last term Obama tried to be nicer to Cuba and made some deals with them, which included easing on the embargo and embassies.
Ah, this along with Argentina’s president, are why thiel and fam moved to Argentina. Someone in his family has lung cancer. He can go there, get his own private air field and get treatment for cancer, build a compound however he likes in the mountains. 1 hour timezone difference to new York and dc. 10 hour time difference from the most populated timezone in the world.
A convenient place to run a tech empire remotely and recieve cutting edge cancer treatment
Cuba’s medical work is amazing.
The US blockade is has been and remains a crime against humanity.
Tbf, if it wasnt for the embargo, cuba wouldnt invest in the one of the few things they can export.
The bar is low and you guys keep on bringing shovels
*drills
We can’t be sure.
The PRC isn’t blockaded in the same way and has also invested in medicine and sends out lots of medical missions; that said, it had a bigger economy and does that less than Cuba.
And even so, it doesn’t make the blockade right - even if this is a potential silver lining.
So does the US. Iirc, the US provided close to 20% of the WHO’s budget before pulling out…
The difference is, the US is trading resources for geopolitical clout. Cuba is trading services for resources because the embargo forces them to do so.
Obviously if the embargo never exist, cuba may have choose to greatly invest in the medical industry. But it would certainly not been as invested as their economy would have been much wider.
The WHO does good work, but it’s as much a bureaucractic force as a medical one, and I think due to the desire for geopolitical clout the US cared more about the latter than the former.
Not that way that the US doesn’t also do some medical outreach with military missions as the PRC also does.
But it does make there a minor difference in kind. After all, the selfish jerk who goes around fulfilling people’s dreams just for his own selfish satisfaction of feeling like a good person still is.More reasonable than the embargo never existing is it finishing in the 90s following the end of the Cold War. Sadly US face couldn’t allow that to happen.
Did we need to play devils advocate today?
I gotta admit I hate the framing of this as “Cuba vs the US.” Cuba coming up with a treatment is commendable. The US coming up with many treatments is commendable. This is fucking medical science, not politics.
The US and their horrible system have worked against science on many occasions.
This is fucking medical science, not politics.
Everything is politics. Especially when everything you try to do is hampered by stupid and/or abusive politics, such as the embargo.
You’re right that coming up with the drug is in itself commendable, but you’re wrong in implying that coming up with it while under the embargo doesn’t make it even MORE impressive.
They have a point though. Yes the embargo makes it more impressive, but also science is the best font of internationalism in the modern world. When the US and USSR were on the verge of killing everyone, our scientists were collaborating. Together we defeated polio, and along with everyone else we killed smallpox.
Science extends beyond borders even when governments try to force it not to. Framing it within national conflicts can take from the beauty and power of its refusal to submit to borders, nationalities, and anything else like that.
The nation of Cuba must be commended for their support of medical science even in the most adverse conditions. But the Cubans and Argentinians who did this did it as part of the internationalist scientific community, and that community is something we as a species should be supporting and cherishing.
The US is Sabotaging healthcare science long-term with it’s bullshit. We would be better off if it turned into a new Atlantida.
The US embargo against Cuba is political as well.
The US politicians turning a blind eye on the lives destroyed by for-profit healthcare are political as well.
Don’t forget how in the US, the amount of doctors is restricted by law by Congress, determined by Congress. That’s mainly to keep doctor’s wages high and create artificial scarcity, but who’s to say the wages can’t be paid for by the state instead?
It is all politics. Your fucking life is going to be even more political soon meaning miserable cause of some policies. I hate it when people are like “duh I am not into politics”.
The US coming up with anything is not commendable because we literally always overcharge wildly for life saving treatments and let anyone who can’t afford them die
Jonas Salk showed it’s possible
Idk, the rest of the world generally gets them at a reasonable pricing
And that redeems the US how? If you do something evil, a harmful act with purely selfish motives, it doesn’t matter how many people learn from you and use that knowledge to do good, what you did remains evil.
Who talked about redeeming the US? I’m just happy I get my healthcare at reasonable rates.
Why is that tweet AI generated. Gross
@Grok why is that tweet AI generated? /s
I fear a significant portion of humanity will be servitors before long.
Before long???
Ahaha, I’m going to hack their stupid fucking machine, they are going to get [REDACTED]
Man, imagine slowly dying of late-stage lung cancer, then getting picked to be in a trial for a drug that could greatly improve your situation, but you get put in the control group. Placebos will still cure cancer if you think they will, right?
That’s not really how trials for treatments like this work. The non-experimental groups would get standard of care/a comparator which would be used to determine efficacy. It would be unethical to give sugar pills to patients with advanced NSCLC.
Edit: yep https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12568215/
Ironically placebos work so well in almost all cases that placebo results actually screw the data a bit. The human fucking mind is crazy yo
Similarly, the nocebo effect also works!
It’s important in case the drug that is being tested has unintended side effects, not having a control group means you have no idea if bad things are caused by the drug or by some other external factor (like medical history of the patients, environment…)
The control group probably isn’t given placebo drugs, that probably wouldn’t fly in most countries. Haven’t looked into these specific trials and I’m not a medical professional!
The AMA has a section in their code of ethics about when and how to use a placebo in situations like this.
Placebo knee surgery literally works
That would be because we now know many cartilage related knee surgeries do not.
the effect is extremely real though, same with nocebo. They did a study a while ago, told people something was poison oak when it wasn’t and rubbed them with it. They broke out in rashes.
Also, worked 30+ years in science and specifically a lot of immunology.
I’m not going to spend much time reading a LLM generated article from a source that pays people for surveys. In general, you are not wrong as far as placebo goes. Nocebo is just life.
That’s exactly what I was going to say!
“Your cancer is very advanced, and without intervention, you will be dead within the year. We’re running a clinical trial on an experimental immunotherapy vaccine that can dramatically improve your outcomes. You’re in the control group, here’s a placebo.”
Cool, my brother in law has like stage v lung cancer. He’s a piece of shit magat though, and I never liked him. He should’ve died two years ago and even his teenage kids are kinda upset he hasn’t. Always gave me bad vibes.
I assume you mean IV.
It’s so late it’s 5 now
I just wish cancer have never had a thing. Fuck cancer.
Your body is constantly making cancerous cells. But the immune system is constantly detecting and cleaning them up.
So, when can we get this???
The post says that it has been approved in Cuba and Argentina. I believe you would need to wait for certification by the relevant medical authority in your country.
Go to Cuba and get it i guess
I can see Floridians riding a boat, but deny it for others. It’s like Texas, where the border jumpers vote like saboteurs.
