The New York Times / July 22, 2008 Rise in TB Is Linked to Loans From I.M.F. By NICHOLAS BAKALAR
The rapid rise in tuberculosis cases in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union is strongly associated with the receipt of loans from the International Monetary Fund, a new study has found. Critics of the fund have suggested that its financial requirements lead governments to reduce spending on health care to qualify for loans. This, the authors say, helps explain the connection. The fund strongly disputes the finding, saying the former communist countries would be much worse off without the loans. "Tuberculosis is a disease that takes time to develop," said William Murray, a spokesman for the fund, "so presumably the increase in mortality rates must be linked to something that happened earlier than I.M.F. funding. This is just phony science." The researchers studied health records in 21 countries and found that obtaining an I.M.F. loan was associated with a 13.9 percent increase in new cases of tuberculosis each year, a 13.3 percent increase in the number of people living with the disease and a 16.6 percent increase in the number of tuberculosis deaths. The study, being published online Tuesday in the journal PLoS Medicine, statistically controlled for numerous other factors that affect tuberculosis rates, including the prevalence of AIDS, inflation rates, urbanization, unemployment rates, the age of the population and improved surveillance. The lead author, David Stuckler, a research associate at Cambridge University, defended the study against the fund's criticisms, noting that the researchers considered whether increased mortality might have led to more loans rather than the other way around. [!] Instead, they found that the increase in tuberculosis mortality followed the lending; each 1 percent increase in credit was associated with a 0.9 percent increase in mortality. And when a country left an I.M.F. loan program, mortality rates dropped by an average of 31 percent. "When you have one correlation, you raise an eyebrow," Mr. Stuckler said. "But when you have more than 20 correlations pointing in the same direction, you start building a strong case for causality." Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company -- Jim Devine / "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
