by Henry Lowendorf, CT Mirror
September 12, 2026
Probably everyone has encountered a family member or friend who suffers from Alzheimer’s disease.
A recent opinion piece in the CT Mirror urges Congress to fund research that would produce diagnostic tests to detect Alzheimer’s onset early so that the progression of the disease may be slowed by existing drugs and the family has time to prepare for the inevitable decline of the patient and its effects on loved ones.
Having an accurate diagnostic test is no doubt very valuable. But its value is limited if there are no effective treatments.
The existing treatments available in the U.S. may slow the progression of the disease but fail to improve the patients’ conditions. They result from important basic research that is expensive and time consuming to carry out, but important for this country to continue to invest in.
Yet, unbeknownst to most of us, there exists today a treatment that improves or stabilizes Alzheimers. But it isn’t coming from the multibillion dollar U.S. pharmaceutical industry, or the U.S. government. Most critically it isn’t today available in the U.S.
The reason we don’t have access to this treatment has nothing to do with medical research. Rather it results from longstanding U.S. foreign policy.
In Cuba a drug that was used to help patients recover from brain trauma was tested on several sets of Alzheimers patients. It’s called NeuroEPO or NeuralCIM. The results in controlled clinical trials were remarkably encouraging to say the least. In mild to moderate Alzheimers patients, cognitive abilities improved in over 50% of patients receiving the Cuban drug in just 48 weeks. In another 30% of patients cognitive abilities stabilized. In the control patients, however, cognition continued to deteriorate. These were double-blind trials and included 170 individuals. The studies are documented in a video, “Teresita’s Dream,” related documentaries and scientific publications. There are efforts in Canada and China to replicate these trials. Why not the U.S.?
How is it possible that this incredible medical development that promises to dramatically improve the lives of millions of Alzheimers patients in our country takes place and most of us don’t know about it?
What do we know about Cuba in general? Today it can’t keep the lights on. It can’t pick up the garbage. We’re told it’s a dictatorship. Well, that’s the narrative that has been driven into us for over 60 years by our government and the corporate media.
The back story is that the U.S. has imposed a strangulating siege on Cuba. For over six decades the U.S. has worked overtime to overthrow the Cuban government. It has invaded, it has sanctioned, it has sabotaged, it has assassinated. President Trump has intensified this siege so that Cuba now has no access to oil. It can’t run its electric grid. It has no gasoline for garbage trucks or trucks to deliver food. It can’t keep infant incubators running. Its infant mortality rate, among the best in the world, has spiked in the last few years. Hospitals can’t carry out important surgery or hydrate sick patients. Under threat of secondary U.S. sanctions the international banks refuse to do business with Cuba.
The Trump administration is publicly threatening to invade Cuba, which likely means bombing its civilian infrastructure including its astounding biotech industry. It claims that this island nation of 11 million souls is a threat to the 340 million population of the United States of America with the biggest, most advanced, technically-armed military in history and an economy a hundredfold or more greater than Cuba’s.
What nonsense demands that this great country needs to be afraid of the small Cuban island? Really?
To the contrary, we should be asking how it is that Cuba appears to have developed a successful treatment of Alzheimers, or a number of successful disease treatments. We should be asking why we aren’t allowed access to NeuralCIM.
We should be demanding our government reverse course, promptly normalize relations with Cuba and find ways to mutually benefit from Cuba’s success in treating Alzheimers among other medical conditions.
Henry Lowendorf lives in New Haven and belongs to the Greater New Haven Peace Council.
This <a target=”_blank” href=”https://ctmirror.org/2026/09/12/what-we-could-gain-from-cuba/”>article</a> first appeared on <a target=”_blank” href=”https://ctmirror.org”>CT Mirror</a> and is republished here under a <a target=”_blank” href=”https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/”>Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License</a>.<img src=”https://ctmirror.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/cropped-CTMirror_bug_rgb-180×180.jpg” style=”width:1em;height:1em;margin-left:10px;”>
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