Saturday, December 18, 2010

WikiLeaks: Cuba banned Sicko for depicting 'mythical' healthcare system

The Guardian is not by any stretch of the imagination a conservative rag. They're reporting on an interesting document from WikiLeaks: Cuba banned Sicko for depicting 'mythical' healthcare system.

Cuba banned Michael Moore's 2007 documentary, Sicko, because it painted such a "mythically" favourable picture of Cuba's healthcare system that the authorities feared it could lead to a "popular backlash", according to US diplomats in Havana.

....

...the memo reveals that when the film was shown to a group of Cuban doctors, some became so "disturbed at the blatant misrepresentation of healthcare in Cuba that they left the room".

Castro's government apparently went on to ban the film because, the leaked cable claims, it "knows the film is a myth and does not want to risk a popular backlash by showing to Cubans facilities that are clearly not available to the vast majority of them."

Apparently, Moore wanted to believe the showcase hospital he saw was typical, and so he didn't bother to check the story.

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