Washington only let eight Cubans enter after organizers put on the pressure. The struggle attracted considerable national and international attention. Washington refused to allow members of the Cuban National Assembly and the Cuban Communist Party to attend the conference. Plenary sessions and workshops discussed racism, religion, tourism and trade, education and democracy, agriculture, youth, unions, literature and poetry. All workshops divided time between Cuban and U.S. presenters, with questions and comments afterward.
Health services are available to all citizens.
Perez noted that even in the difficult economic period since 1989, infant mortality has continued to decline. It dropped from 11.1 deaths per 1,000 live births in 1989 to 7.2 per 1,000 in 1997. They went to Brazil to say that the vaccine is not good and they paid people to do that. The vaccine has saved a lot of lives in Argentina, Brazil and Chile. She cited a recent study in the Journal of the American Medical Association that found that U.S. doctors are blacklisted from HMOs if they treat a lot of poor people.