LavenderRed_Cubabook

Walter Lippmann
Billboards aren’t used to sell products in Cuba, but to bring important education
to all—like this AIDS awareness sign.
assistance and we are looking at all possibilities anywhere in the world. We try to synthesize
what is being done internationally.
“Here we have the SUMA group, which is developing Cuban technology to do massscale
diagnostic testing. With an infinitesimal blood sample we can diagnose for AIDS.
We’ll be trying to get this equipment into all the country’s blood banks next year, and in
all the hygiene and epidemiology centers. And we’ll be preparing ourselves for carrying
out at least annual blood tests of the whole population, in every blood bank and epidemiology
center, in every hospital. We’re preparing a very wide-range program.”
Terry concluded, “I repeat that the method of quarantine in a sanatorium isn’t permanent.
It will be treated dialectically. We are studying the situation and when we see
that it is not the correct solution, or that other possibilities offer themselves, we will
act accordingly—always basing ourselves on scientific data. Otherwise we wouldn’t be
scientists.”
Clearly quarantine in Cuba was a tactic at the moment the epidemic emerged, not a
scientific principle.
Cuba brought science, not scapegoating, to AIDS care 55