Communism is not brain-dead
Cuban coma conference struggles on after US keeps researchers from attending
HAVANA, CUBA—A coma conference is still alive in Cuba, despite a decision last week by the US Treasury Department that kept nearly 100 American researchers from attending the meeting.
At the modern conference center on the outskirts of Havana, Calixto Machado, the lead organizer of the Fourth International Symposium on Coma and Death, said the American presence is sorely missed. "These are important personalities that are not here," said Machado, who is with the Institute of Neurology and Neurosurgery in Havana. "This has certainly affected the level of conference."
The international symposium drew more than 50 American researchers when it was last held in Cuba in 2000. But attendance at the conference was essentially cut by a third, Machado said, after the US Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control denied special travel visas late last week.
Americans are forbidden to travel to Cuba unless they are given special permission, which is usually granted to journalists and medical professionals who go there for work. Although there are occasional US visa problems with individual researchers trying to visit Cuba, Machado said that this is the first time he knew of an entire conference being banned.
Several US researchers were supposed to present papers at the conference, considered one of the more prominent venues for discussing matters of life and death. After learning of the travel restrictions late last week, the organizers quickly pulled in other speakers, made some changes to the schedule, and updated the no-frills conference program.
More than 100 researchers from around the world are still attending the coma symposium, which lasts through today (March 12). "We still have great meeting," Machado said.
At the conference, Alvaro Fernandez presented a survey of 80 medical doctors working at Celia Sanchez Manduley Hospital in Manzanillo, a mid-size fishing port on the southern coast of the island.
On the question of euthanasia, which is illegal in Cuba, 75% of doctors said they were opposed to the practice for moral reasons. Even if it were legal, Fernandez said, most doctors in Cuba would still not perform euthanasia because they "consider it a crime."
Machado, the conference organizer, proposed a new definition of death that incorporates the often hard-to-detect notion of consciousness. "The term consciousness has been used by psychologists and philosophers, but there are pathological and physical mechanisms of consciousness generation in the brain," said Machado. "You can test for it."
Key physical and emotional attributes, he said, are tied to interconnected regions of the brain, which means that life only ends with the entire destruction of the brain. The heart may need medical assistance to continue pumping, but until consciousness stops as well, the mind is still in control. "When you say you love with your heart, that's not true," Machado said. "You love with your brain."
Links for this article
L. Spinney, “US scientists blocked from Cuba,” The Scientist, March 10, 2004.
http://www.biomedcentral.com/news/20040310/04
Fourth International Symposium on Coma and Death
http://www.sld.cu/eventos/comaymuerte/index.htm