{"id":2280,"date":"2015-09-28T19:29:29","date_gmt":"2015-09-29T00:29:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/?p=2280"},"modified":"2015-09-28T19:29:29","modified_gmt":"2015-09-29T00:29:29","slug":"cuba-watch-ctd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/2015\/09\/28\/cuba-watch-ctd\/","title":{"rendered":"Cuba Watch, Ctd"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A legacy for Obama (or necessary progress, if you prefer) of the thaw in Cuban-American relations may come in the area of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newscientist.com\/article\/mg22730394-200-us-cuba-thaw-could-bring-important-gains-for-cancer-research\/\" target=\"_blank\">cancer research<\/a>, according to <em><strong>NewScientist<\/strong><\/em>&#8216;s Will Grant (19 September 2015, paywall?):<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Cancer is the second biggest cause of death in Cuba, after cardiovascular disease, and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.who.int\/features\/2013\/cuba_biotechnology\/en\/\">lung cancer rates<\/a> are among the highest in the region, according to the World Heath Organization.<\/p>\n<p>But Cuban researchers are helping lead the fight against the disease. They recently added a new weapon to the arsenal against lung cancer: Cimavax. This vaccine \u2013 designed to be given to people with cancer \u2013 encourages the immune system to attack a protein that fuels tumour growth, slowing the disease\u2019s spread.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Along with this specific treatment comes news of how they approach research:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>There is one key reason why Cuba punches above its weight in the medical research arena: research and treatment are tightly connected in the Cuban healthcare system. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pnas.org\/content\/112\/19\/5859\">Writing in the journal <i>PNAS<\/i> earlier this year<\/a>, a group of US neuroscientists including Mark Cohen of the University of California, Los Angeles, noted the benefits of this \u201ctwo-way communication between the lay public and research scientists in the cause of public health\u201d (<a href=\"http:\/\/doi.org\/7qc\">doi.org\/7qc<\/a>). They cited large-scale population studies which \u201croutinely achieve more than 95 per cent enrol[l]ment success\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Partly because of this connection, the team at CIM has made significant progress with clinical trials of Cimavax. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tandfonline.com\/doi\/abs\/10.4161\/hv.3.1.3537\">Pooled results<\/a> from phase I and II clinical trials showed that those vaccinated survived for 11 months on average, while the survival rate in a control group was four to five months (<i>Human Vaccines<\/i>, <a href=\"http:\/\/doi.org\/dbgtw9\">doi.org\/dbgtw9<\/a>).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>There&#8217;s more to the island than just cigars &#8211; the cause of the lung cancer motivating the vaccine &#8211; and socialism.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A legacy for Obama (or necessary progress, if you prefer) of the thaw in Cuban-American relations may come in the area of cancer research, according to NewScientist&#8216;s Will Grant (19 September 2015, paywall?): Cancer is the second biggest cause of death in Cuba, after cardiovascular disease, and lung cancer rates \u2026 <a class=\"continue-reading-link\" href=\"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/2015\/09\/28\/cuba-watch-ctd\/\"> Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr; <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2280","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2280","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2280"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2280\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2282,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2280\/revisions\/2282"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2280"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2280"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2280"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}