All who have contributed to this thread, and I hope others too, might be interested to look at the results of a year-long study by a US committee, the American Association for World Health, into the effects of the embargo

Through this site, and reviews of A Developmental Analysis of Cuba's Health Care System since 1959 by Theodore H McDonald (Edwin Mellen Press) - can't afford the book itself, it's a hefty GBP69 - I have stumbled on some facts that took my breath away. If Doug R did not know them, I can't criticise him for that. I certainly did not before his posts prompted me to look further into this issue.

The first sentenceof the committee's substantial report says "the US embargo of Cuba has dramatically harmed the health and nutrition of large numbers of ordinary Cuban citizens." And the next sentence says: "...it is our expert medical opinion that the US embargo has caused a significant rise in suffering - and even deaths - in Cuba." OK, we might have guessed this much, and I don't think anyone in this thread has attempted to defend the policy. But useful to see it confirmed.

What really surprised me was that despite the sanctions, Cuba has the lowest mortality rate for under-fives in the world - and less than half the infant-mortality rate of Washington DC. In 1998, some 25,000 US Americans caught measles, of which 60 died. Cuba has eradicated measles, along with malaria, diphtheria and tuberculosis.

McDonald, in his book, concludes: "Cuba has actually delivered the goods as far as social policy is concerned...They have been spectacularly successful and astonishingly innovative in the two critically important public policy areas of education and health."

Not quite the hell on earth the Miami faction would have us believe..