EAN: 9783319406084

SPRINGERBRIEFS IN HISTORY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNO...

The present book introduces an original (new) perspective on Cuba. This book revisits Cuba's
choice  after the 1959 revolution  to develop an advanced healthcare and scientific system. It
also introduces new aspects of the problem development underdevelopment. From the start  every
effort of the Cuban leadership and scientific community was driven by the primary purpose of
meeting the country's basic economic and social needs. Immediate key measures taken after the
revolution included free education up to higher levels and free health services. In only a
couple of decades Third World diseases were defeated and a First World health profile was
achieved. In the sciences  support and collaboration was sought and welcomed from both Soviet
and western countries. Moreover  due to the backward position of the Soviet Union in genetics
and molecular biology  in the early 1970s Cuban scientists were trained in these fields mainly
by Italian biologists. In the following decade  initially relying on contacts with American and
Finnish specialists  Cuban biologists and physicians built a large industrial biotechnology
complex to produce and commercialize Cuban-made  and often invented  medicines and vaccines. In
the early 1990s the sudden collapse of the Soviet Union and the socialist market created an
unprecedented challenge. Yet Cuba's scientific system substantially resiled  despite
unavoidable setbacks. This crisis was faced by confirming and reinforcing government support
for biotechnology  with the result that today Cuba excels at a global level in the typical
capital-intensive field of biotechnology. While this book is especially devoted to historians
of science and technology and to biotechnologists  it is of interest to the general public.

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