Rise in TB Is Linked to Loans From I.M.F. (Eastern Europe)

Source: NY Times

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.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/22/health/research/22tb.html?ex=1374379200&en=440e910129fcf314&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

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If you want to get a clear look at the IMF and what it really does, I highly recommend John Perkin's Confessions of an Economic Hitman.

Iffy because after 1991 a lot of things changed that affected health and health care, many of them not involving the IMF, and many of them not particularly voluntarily accepted by the countries involved.

But still it's worth looking at.