More writing on foreign affairs in The Atlantic Monthly and Atlantic Unbound. The home page of an organization devoted to combatting the spread of infectious diseases in Russia. A Lecture delivered at a NATO symposium on the state of public health in Russia. In the remnants of the USSR, health care is in a deadly state of shambles. A series of reports in Newsday.
Environmental issues lurk behind much of the public-health problem.
Radioactive contamination is rife. Chemical contamination, such as by dioxin, is largely to blame for the fact that life expectancy for both men and women in the town of Dzerzhinsk, in the region of Nizhegorodskaya, is no better than fifty years. At least until 1995 DDT continued to be used, despite an announcement by the Soviet government almost three decades ago of a ban on its production and use. Bad water nationwide has led to high rates not only of bacterial dysentery but also of hepatitis and cholera. And thermal-power plants throughout the country are spewing forth carcinogens, owing to incomplete combustion.