SCIENTIST IN A STRANGE LAND

Abstract

In 1975, the author, a diagnostic virologist working for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, was invited by the Cuban government to travel to Havana and participate in the testing of human serum samples in order to study and better understand the arthropod-borne virus situation in the island nation. The results of the serologic survey indicated that Cuba was vulnerable to the spread of dengue viruses, and in fact, two years after the serologic survey, Cuba experienced an outbreak, followed a few years later by a much more deadly epidemic caused by dengue virus 2. Subsequently, the Cuban government alleged that the U.S. government was involved and publicly, falsely implicated the author. The author believes science should not be captive to political manipulations.

Keywords:

• Cuba
• United States
• scientific exchange
• dengue fever

Acknowledgements

I am extremely indebted to Milton Leitenberg of the Center for International and Security Studies at the University of Maryland, and Raymond Zilinskas of the Chemical and Biological Weapons Nonproliferation Program at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, Monterey Institute of International Studies. Both generously contributed time, resources and references, corrections, and their thoughts and guidance throughout the difficult process of producing this manuscript. I also acknowledge the difficult position in which Cuban biomedical scientists find themselves; perhaps someday soon, both sides of this political argument will reach a reasonable détente.

Notes

1. Sheryl Gay Stolberg and Damien Cave, “Obama Opens Door to Cuba, but Only a Crack,” New York Times, April April 14, 2009, p. A6; Ginger Thompson, “U.S. Signals Willingness to Talks with Cuba,” New York Times, May 23, 2009, p. A1.

2. Duane J. Gubler, “Dengue/Dengue Hemorrhagic Fever: History and Current Status,” Novartis Foundation Symposium 277 (2006), pp. 3–16.

3. Duane J. Gubler and Gary G. Clark, “Dengue/Dengue Hemorrhagic Fever: The Emergence of a Global Health Problem,” Emerging Infectious Diseases 1 (1995), pp. 55–57.

4. Maria G. Guzmán, Gustavo P. Kouri, José Bravo, Maritza Soler, Susan Vazquez, and Luis Morier, “Dengue Hemorrhagic Fever in Cuba, 1981: A Retrospective Seroepidemiologic Study,” American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene 42 (1990), pp. 179–84.

5. Francisco P. Pinheiro and Stephen J. Corber, “Global Situation of Dengue and Dengue Haemorrhagic Fever, and Its Emergence in the Americas,” World Health Statistics Quarterly 50 (1997), pp. 161–69.

6. Robert Gould and Nancy D. Connell, “The Public Health Effects of Biological Weapons,” in Barry S. Levy and Victor W. Sidel, eds., War and Public Health (Updated Edition) (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), pp. 110–11.

7. Bill Schaap, “U.S. Biological Warfare: The 1981 Cuba Dengue Epidemic,” CovertAction Information Bulletin, Summer 1982, pp. 28–31. (In 1992, the publication changed its name to CovertAction Quarterly.) Schaap wrote: “Dr. Calisher has of late been viewed with extreme suspicion by Cuban health officials. … In 1975 he visited the island; according to Cuban sources Dr. Calisher predicted at that time that Cuba might face a dengue epidemic within two years, because, he said, of their relations with Africa. Then, in 1977, for the first time in 33 years, there was a dengue epidemic in Cuba.” It is true I predicted that dengue would soon be a problem for Cuba, but that is all of which I am “guilty.”

8. Schaap argues, “When Cuban officials charged that the 1981 epidemic was a clandestine operation of the U.S., Dr. Calisher was one of the U.S. experts who publicly belittled the accusation, pointing out that there were many mosquitoes on Cuba, and stressing its relations with many nations of Africa and Southeast Asia. This ‘explanation’ was given even though, as noted above, visitors from dengue areas had been checked and even though the initial cases were unrelated to foreign travel.” That last sentence is superficial and misleading, and the article gives no details as to how these people were “checked” (a non-scientific term used by laypeople). Schaap does not seem to understand that about half of all people infected with dengue are asymptomatic—they carry the virus without showing any signs of having it. Such patients could easily pass visual checks (Schaap mentions nothing of more substantial “checks,” such as blood tests) and then proceed to infect Cubans who never traveled, giving the false impression that the initial clinical cases had nothing to do with travel.

9. Many Cuban scientists and other officials made it clear that they neither agreed with nor supported the Cuban government's allegations and that they believed both introductions of dengue viruses to Cuba were natural occurrences. Scientist and research scholar Milton Leitenberg of the Center for International and Security Studies at University of Maryland conducted several private interviews in 1996 that corroborate this point.

10. “The People of Cuba vs. The Government of the United States of America for Human Damages to be Submitted to the Civil and Administrative Court of Law at the Provincial People's Court in Havana City,” May 31, 1999, <www.cuba.cu/gobierno/documentos/1999/ing/d310599i.html>.

11. “Cuba's Lawsuit: Part IV,” Granma, May 31, 1999, <www.granma.cu/documento/ingles/024-i4.html>.

12. Raymond A. Zilinskas, “Cuban Allegations of U.S. Biological Warfare: False Allegations and Their Impact on Attribution,” in Anne L. Clunan, Peter R. Lavoy, and Susan B. Martin, eds., Terrorism, War, or Disease: Unraveling the Use of Biological Weapons (Stanford: Stanford Security Studies, 2008), pp. 144–64. Zilinskas deftly distinguishes between allegations, accusations, and attributions.

13. Raymond A. Zilinskas, “Cuban Allegations of Biological Warfare by the United States: Assessing the Evidence,” Critical Reviews in Microbiology 25 (1999), pp. 173–227.

14. Raymond A. Zilinskas, “Cuban Allegations of Biological Warfare by the United States: Assessing the Evidence,” Critical Reviews in Microbiology 25 (1999), pp. 173–227.

15. “History of Plagues: Biological Warfare Waged by the US against Cuba,” Cuba Solidarity Campaign, <www.poptel.org.uk/cuba-solidarity/CubaSi-January/Bio.html>.

16. Zilinskas, “Cuban Allegations of Biological Warfare by the United States: Assessing the Evidence”; Milton M. Leitenberg, “An Assessment of the Threat of the Use of Biological Weapons or Biological Agents,” paper from Conference on Biosecurity and Bioterrorism, Istituto Diplomatico Mario Toscano, Rome, Italy, September 18–19, 2000, 26 pages.

17. Richard Eder, “Cuba Charges U.S. May Drop Germs,” New York Times, June 2, 1964, p. A9.

18. For example, “C.I.A. scientists had a plan for making Mr. Castro's beard fall out by dusting his shoes with thalium, a depilatory.” Of course, this plan was never acted on. Anthony Lewis, “How Fantasies Became Policies, Out of Control: The Honorable, Murderous Gentlemen of a Secret World,” New York Times, November 23, 1975, p. 19.

19. Milton Leitenberg, The Problem of Biological Weapons (Stockholm: Swedish National Defence College, 2004), pp. 77–84; Zilinskas, “Cuban Allegations of U.S. Biological Warfare: False Allegations and Their Impact on Attribution”; Leitenberg, “An Assessment of the Threat of the Use of Biological Weapons or Biological Agents.”

20. Robert E. Shope, then director of the World Health Organization's World Center for Arbovirus Reference and Research, and Scott Halstead, at the time with the Rockefeller Foundation, had tried to make arrangements with Cuban authorities to have certain dengue viruses isolated during Cuban outbreaks taken to the U.S. for further studies but were unable to convince the Cuban authorities to collaborate in such an effort.

21. Maria G. Guzman, Vincent Deubel, Jose L. Pelegrino, Delfina Rosario, Miguel Marrero, Carlos Sariol, and Gustavo Kouri, “Partial Nucleotide and Amino Acid Sequences of the Envelope and Envelope/Nonstructural Protein-1 Gene Junction of Four Dengue-2 Virus Strains Isolated during the 1981 Cuban Epidemic,” American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene 52 (1995), pp. 241–46.

22. Rebeca Rico-Hesse, “Molecular Evolution and Distribution of Dengue Viruses Type 1 and 2 in Nature,” Virology 174 (1990), pp. 479–93; Rebeca Rico-Hesse, Lisa M. Harrison, Rosa Alba Salas, Duilia Tovar, Ananda Nisalak, Celso Ramos, Jorge Boshell, Maria Teresa R. de Mesa, Rita M.R. Nogueira, and Amélia Travassos da Rosa, “Origins of Dengue Type 2 Viruses Associated with Increased Pathogenicity in the Americas,” Virology 230 (1997), pp. 244–51; Rebeca Rico-Hesse, Lisa M. Harrison, Ananda Nisalak, David W. Vaughn, Siripen Kalayanarooj, Sharone Green, Alan L. Rothman, Francis A. Ennis, “Molecular Evolution of Dengue Type 2 Virus in Thailand,” American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene 58 (1998), pp. 96–101; Duane J. Gubler, “Dengue and Dengue Hemorrhagic Fever,” Clinical Microbiology Reviews 11 (1998), pp. 480–96.

23. Rebeca Rico-Hesse, “Microevolution and Virulence of Dengue Viruses,” Advances in Virus Research 59 (2003), pp. 315–41.

24. Rebeca Rico-Hesse, “Microevolution and Virulence of Dengue Viruses,” Advances in Virus Research 59 (2003), pp. 315–41.; Guzman et al., “Partial Nucleotide and Amino Acid Sequences of the Envelope and Envelope/Nonstructural Protein-1 Gene Junction of Four Dengue-2 Virus Strains Isolated during the 1981 Cuban Epidemic.”

25. C.A. Sariol, J.L. Pelegrino, A. Martinez, E. Arteaga, Gustavo Kouri, and Maria G. Guzman, “Detection and Genetic Relationship of Dengue Virus Sequences in Seventeen-Year-Old Paraffin-Embedded Samples from Cuba,” American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene 61 (1999), pp. 994–1000.

26. Rico-Hesse, “Molecular Evolution and Distribution of Dengue Viruses Type 1 and 2 in Nature,” pp. 479–93.

27. Scott B. Halstead, “Dengue in the Americas and Southeast Asia: Do They Differ?” Revista Panamericana de Salud Publica 20 (2006), pp. 407–15.