Russia Is Not in Good Health : But decision to sell U.S.-approved prescription drugs may help

New mortality statistics beginning to emerge from Russia offer a startling picture of decline, the result both of what one researcher calls an “unprecedented” rise in the male death rate and a simultaneous sharp increase in infant death rates.

The average age for male mortality is now believed to have fallen to 59, the lowest in Russia in 30 years and well below the average for industrialized countries. Infant mortality, 17.4 per 1,000 in 1990, jumped to 19.1 last year. Overall, Russia experienced a 20% rise in its death rate last year, with deaths exceeding births by 800,000.

Judith Shapiro, a British academic who has worked with the Russian Finance Ministry, attributes the high death rate for men to two primary causes: an increase in heart disease and strokes and an increase in violent deaths. Those causes appear to account for 75% of the extra deaths that occurred last year.

Shapiro cites what she calls a “psychosocial crisis” as a key contributor to the soaring death rate, meaning the stresses of living in a society increasingly burdened by crime and, for many, growing economic insecurity. Among other things, the quality and availability of health care in Russia have fallen markedly.

Some partial improvement may be in sight. Russia has now decided to allow virtually all American-made drugs that have been approved by the Food and Drug Administration to be sold in the country, dropping its own testing program.

That should soon begin to make available a line of pharmaceuticals that have been either unavailable in Russia or in short supply. Examples of the latter include insulin to treat diabetes and drugs to regulate high blood pressure. Both diabetes and hypertension contribute to the heart disease and strokes among Russian males that appear to have increased so greatly in the last few years.

Expanded access to American drugs won’t end what seems to be a true health crisis in Russia. But at least greater availability should be able to do some good in reducing the sharp and staggering climb in male and infant mortality that has suddenly occurred.