Reply #8: Prize-Winning Cuban Scientist Denied Visa

[callady]

Prize-Winning Cuban Scientist Denied Visa

Saturday November 12, 2005 12:01 PM

By ANITA SNOW

Associated Press Writer

HAVANA (AP) - A Cuban scientist who helped develop a low-cost synthetic vaccine that prevents meningitis and pneumonia in small children says he was offended the U.S. government denied his request to travel to the United States to receive an award.

Vicente Verez-Bencomo was to accept the award recognizing his team's technological achievement during a Wednesday ceremony at the Tech Museum of Innovation in San Jose, Calif. He had also been invited to address a gathering of the Society for Glycobiology in Boston on Friday.

Verez-Bencomo said the State Department denied him a visa because the visit would be ``detrimental to the interests of the United States.''

``That is really offensive to me,'' the chemical engineer told The Associated Press as he sat on a stool inside the University of Havana's Synthetic Antigens Laboratory, where the vaccine was developed. ``It's really a shame.''

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-5410343,00.html