Jad Abumrad / Chad (Radiolab host; primarily Jad Abumrad)

Hard economic times in Cuba.

Almost overnight after the fall of the Soviet Union, Cuba was left without the massive subsidies it used to get.

That meant long lines for bread, short tempers.

We were suffering.

Vladimir Ceballos, who never actually lived inside the sanitarium, he says that people outside were going hungry and he...

He himself... I was weighing like 100 pounds, 98 pounds.

Oh my God.

And things just kept getting worse.

You see like a hungry, sunburned, dehydrated... 50,000 people leave Cuba.

They manage to escape on a raft and make it to the Florida Keys.

These days, more Cubans than ever are taking the risk.

It was the big crisis, you know, in the Clinton era.

But... If you were in the sanatorium...

You were fine.

Yeah, just being able to get milk and an egg and beans.

Bob Ariano says that that was a big motivation for a lot of kids.

Yes, I'm not going to be harassed.

Yes, I'm free.

And yes, I also get meals.

And it went from being a couple of self-injectors, a couple of dozen self-injectors, to being hundreds.