CARACAS - On Wednesday, Venezuela's paranoiac president Hugo Chavez said that the cancer that he and four other Latin American presidents are suffering could have been caused by "technology developed by the United States."

The ailing autocrat added that, although he did want to make "reckless" accusations, "It would be hardly surprising that they have developed a technology to induce cancer and that it is known only 50 years later."

The ostensibly serious allegation was made at a Christmas and New Year's celebration for Venezuela's Armed Forces. Though some in the audience appeared to believe that the commment was a jest, Chavez doubled down on the allegation, saying, "It seems very strange that cancer has hit (Paraguayan President Fernando) Lugo, (Brazilian President) Dilma (Rousseff), then me, and within a few days (Brazilian former president Luis Inácio) Lula (da Silva), and now (Argentinean President) Cristina (Fernández de Kirchner)."

Chavez alluded to experiments that US Public Health Service doctor John Charles Cutler conducted in the 1940s in Guatemala, which had the consent of the Guatemalan government but not of the patients involved.

Chavez suggested that the far-left presidents of Ecuador and Bolivia, Rafael Correa and Evo Morales, should be careful and monitor their health to avoid the supposed U.S.-induced cancer as well.