Pipol Power

This week’s issue of BMJ has an interesting article about one of the biggest, yet unknown, massacres of recent history: the stunning ‘excess mortality’ since the collapse of the Soviet Union. After the Soviet Union’s integration into the capitalist world system, mortality rates surged and millions have died who would have lived much longer under the country’s conditions in the 1980s. According to the article, an extra 2.5-3 million Russian adults died in middle age in the period 1992-2001 than would have been expected based on 1991 mortality.

The study identifies two waves in the increase of mortality in Russia: one immediately after 1991, and a second wave after the economic crisis in 1998, including rapid devaluation of its currency and increases in poverty. This economic crisis coincided with a further increase in adult mortality in the three years up to 2001, with life expectancy falling to 58.9 among men and 71.8 among women, levels similar to the low points reached in 1994.

Interestingly, capitalist economic crisis and health under socialism are also featured in an article in this week’s Lancet. Argentinian people denied medical services as a result of the near-collapse of the republic's health and social security after the country’s 2001 economic meltdown, will get free treatment in… Cuba. This is made possible by an agreement between the two countries under which Havana's US$ 1.9 billion debt to Argentina will be reduced, in return for drugs, vaccines, and access to Cuban health-care services. Care up to a value of $50 million over 5 years will be provided to low-income Argentinians. Argentina's chronic shortage of drugs will be eased by consignments from Cuba's highly developed pharmaceutical sector, worth $475 million and Cuba will provide training to Argentinian scientists and medical tutors.