The “Cuban Epidemic Neuropathy” of the 1990s: A glimpse from inside a totalitarian disease

During the 1990s, Cuba was struck by a rare epidemic disease. Up to 50,000 people were affected by a pathology compromising primarily the optic nerve but also peripheral nerves and even spinal cord. This is a testimony from a direct witness and participant in the initial study of the epidemics showing that in spite of claims of a “multifactorial” etiology, still in the literature, the root cause of this disease is just result of the deliberate deprivation of the most elementary economic rights by extreme Government control over a population left unable to tend to its elementary survival by itself, in spite of a thorough Government-sponsored, universally celebrated Universal Healthcare System.