• Submitted by: admin
• Caribbean
• Central America
• International
• South America
• Health and Medicine
• 08 / 22 / 2007

In the capitalist world, healthcare businesses continue to make a hefty profit from cataract operations with many private clinics charging more than $1,000 US and others by offering treatments that do not work.

In Spain, the Solnatura Company is engulfed in a scandal. By way of the Internet and radio, Solnatura offers a wide gamut of "natural medicine" products, ranging from cures for baldness to dietary supplements, to eye drops capable of curing cataracts in six months for 600 Euros.

An 89-year-old woman who lives in Madrid heard the Solnatura ad on the radio and bought its treatment in the hope that she would recover her eyesight after a doctor told her she was suffering from cataracts. She began to use the drops but nothing happened. To the contrary, her sight grew increasingly worse. She called the company and they told her it was normal and that "cataracts would go away little by little."

Her daughter, Ana Lopez Sosa, took the remedy "identified as CAN-C" to a drugstore, where she was told it could not cure anything. Then, she went to the Patient Defense Office, which reported the company to the District Attorney in Madrid, and she also sent a letter to the Spanish Minister of Health.

Over the past four years and through August 8, 750,635 persons had been operated on for cataracts. Previous blood tests, refraction studies, clinical examination, medicines, lodging, food and medical treatment, plus the surgery itself, are completely free thanks to the cooperation program of the Bolivarian Alternative for The Americas (ALBA) promoted by Cuba and Venezuela. As part of this project, 37 ophthalmology centers have been built in 8 Latin American countries.

Source: Juan Marrero, Granma