Outbreak of Dengue fever in Cuba - Cuba accuses

[Karl Marx's Camel]

Cuba accused the U.S. for the outbreak of Dengue fever in Cuba. Do you believe this accusation is rightly placed, or not? And why?

[Body Count]

Well, I really have no information whatsoever to back or refute these claims, I'm not even really sure what this outbreak is or when it happened.

But the IDEA of the U$ using biological warfare is certainly not out of the question.

[piet11111]

its obvious america has acces to dengue fever through their CDC program.
and they certainly dont mind doing a "field test" but i find it unlikely they would use contagious biological agents against nations in such close proximity as cuba is to the united states.

but if the possibility is there ........

[Sabocat]

Not only did the U.S. experiment with "biologicals" in the U.S. against it's own population, but it is highly likely that they introduced Dengue fever to Cuba.

Cuba had before, little or no instance of Dengue fever up until that outbreak.

The U.S. has a long history of biological attacks against Cuba.


What undoubtedly was an even more sensitive venture was the use
of chemical and biological weapons against Cuba by the United States.
It is a remarkable record.
In August 1962, a British freighter under Soviet lease, having
damaged its propeller on a reef, crept into the harbor at San
Juan, Puerto Rico for repairs. It was bound for a Soviet port
with 80,000 bags of Cuban sugar. The ship was put into dry dock
and 14,135 sacks of sugar were unloaded to a warehouse to
facilitate the repairs. While in the warehouse, the sugar was
contaminated by CIA agents with a substance that was allegedly
harmless but unpalatable. When President Kennedy learned of the
operation he was furious because it had taken place in US
territory and if discovered could provide the Soviet Union with a
propaganda field-day and could set a terrible precedent for
chemical sabotage in the cold war. He directed that the sugar
not be returned to the Russians, although what explanation was
given to them is not publicly known.{19} Similar undertakings
were apparently not canceled. The CIA official who helped direct
worldwide sabotage efforts, referred to above, later revealed
that "There was lots of sugar being sent out from Cuba, and we
were putting a lot of contaminants in it."{20}
The same year, a Canadian agricultural technician working
as an adviser to the Cuban government was paid $5,000 by "an American
military intelligence agent" to infect Cuban turkeys with a virus which
would produce the fatal Newcastle disease. Subsequently, 8,000
turkeys died. The technician later claimed that although he had
been to the farm where the turkeys had died, he had not actually
administered the virus, but had instead pocketed the money, and
that the turkeys had died from neglect and other causes unrelated
to the virus. This may have been a self-serving statement. The
Washington Post reported that "According to U.S.
intelligence reports, the Cubans -- and some Americans -- believe
the turkeys died as the result of espionage."{21} Authors
Warren Hinckle and William Turner, citing a participant in the
project, have reported in their book on Cuba that:

During 1969 and 1970, the CIA deployed futuristic weather modification technology to
ravage Cuba's sugar crop and undermine the economy. Planes from the China Lake
Naval Weapons Center in the California desert, where hi tech was developed, overflew
the island, seeding rain clouds with crystals that precipitated torrential rains over
non-agricultural areas and left the cane fields arid (the downpours caused killer flash
floods in some areas).{22}
In 1971, also according to participants, the CIA turned over to Cuban
exiles a virus which causes African swine fever. Six weeks later, an
outbreak of the disease in Cuba forced the slaughter of 500,000 pigs to
prevent a nationwide animal epidemic. The outbreak, the first ever
in the Western hemisphere, was called the "most alarming event" of the
year by the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization.{23}
Ten years later, the target may well have been human beings,
as an epidemic of dengue fever swept the Cuban island. Transmitted
by blood-eating insects, usually mosquitos, the disease produces
severe flu symptoms and incapacitating bone pain. Between May and
October 1981, over 300,000 cases were reported in Cuba with 158
fatalities, 101 of which were children under 15.{24} In 1956 and 1958,
declassified documents have revealed, the US Army loosed swarms of
specially bred mosquitos in Georgia and Florida to see whether
disease-carrying insects could be weapons in a biological war. The
mosquitos bred for the tests were of the Aedes Aegypti type, the
precise carrier of dengue fever as well as other diseases.{25} In
1967 it was reported by Science magazine that at the US government
center in Fort Detrick, Maryland, dengue fever was amongst those
"diseases that are at least the objects of considerable research
and that appear to be among those regarded as potential BW
[biological warfare] agents."{26} Then, in 1984, a Cuban exile
on trial in New York testified that in the latter part of 1980 a
ship travelled from Florida to Cuba with

a mission to carry some germs to introduce them in Cuba to be used against the Soviets
and against the Cuban economy, to begin what was called chemical war, which later on
produced results that were not what we had expected, because we thought that it was
going to be used against the Soviet forces, and it was used against our own people,
and with that we did not agree.{27}

Bill Blum (http://www.killinghope.org/)