How Our New Relationship With Cuba Will Improve Americans’ Health
October 25, 2016
Erin Schumaker, Huffington Post
Photo Credit: Carlos Barria/Reuters
When Dr. C. William Keck sat down to write an editorial in the New England Journal of Medicine, imploring Congress to end the United States’ Cuba embargo so that Cuban and American researchers could better collaborate, he had no idea that the U.S. Treasury Department’s lift of sanctions was just days away.
The embargo isn’t completely gone, but many goods and regulations are now available to Americans. While news of the loosened sanctions has focused on trade policy and travel souvenir rules, Keck sees a clear win for public health and medical research: The government lifted sanctions on joint health research, Cuba pharmaceuticals that earn FDA approval and bank accounts for authorized health-related business, effective October 17.
