VALLEY'S OLD COMPUTERS FIND NEW USES IN CUBA

Posted on Thu, Apr. 29, 2004





VALLEY'S OLD COMPUTERS FIND NEW USES IN CUBA

GROUP COLLECTS MACHINES FOR MEDICAL WORKERS

By Kellie Schmitt

Mercury News


When Palo Alto handyman Dudley Lewis sees old computers on the Peninsula, he thinks of all the potential they could have -- in Cuba.
Lewis is part of a group of local volunteers who gather valley leftovers and donate them for the Cuban medical community.

``I was really shocked at how many lives you could save with such little equipment,'' he said.
(snip)

The Santa Clara-based group, USA-Cuba InfoMed, formed nine years ago to support Infomed, a health information system in the island country. The goal was to donate computers to help develop a network for medical information and databases.

The group selected Cuba because it was impressed with the outreach medical work done by Cuban doctors, such as staffing South African hospitals and treating Chernobyl victims.
(snip)


http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/local/states/california/counties/santa_clara/los_altos/8547580.htm
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Great destination for outgrown computers, rather than pitching them. It's a terrific gesture: finding a humanitarian loophole in the embargo on Cuba.

Of course Boucher will say they will use them for producing bio-weapons. Cheap medicine for the poor. Pharmaceuticals are against this.

9 lbs of lead dust in every monitor and mecury and cadium ....it would cost $40/45 each to recycle and dispose of them...lets pollute Cuba instead of China...it's cheaper to ship the trash to cuba
www.svtc.org/cleancc/pubs/poisonpc.htm

Exporting Harm
www.svtc.org/cleancc/pubs/technotrash.htm

http://www.svtc.org/cleancc/pubs/photos.htm

Presumably they'll get more out of them than the 45 bucks it'll cost to dispose of them once they're finished.

and won tri-county expo...sorry

and also the bankroll to buy mass quantities of them from other countries, and also pay the additional freight, a tremendous expense, getting them from places which don't have to bow to the Helms-Burton restrictions created to bar other countries from doing business with Cuba.

As you have seen with their cars, etc., they have developed a fantastic ability to work with aging machinery.