They just figured this out now?
Seriously, though I would not want to downplay the role of the privatization in the process, things get more nuanced when you get close up. For instance, if you look at a demographic map of Ukraine, you will notice that the areas with the highest male life expectancy (and we are talking specifically about male life expectancy here) are those areas that were not part of the USSR in the 1930s. This may, however, have to do with those areas being largely rural, while eastern Ukraine is industrial. In Russia, male life expectancy is much higher in areas that are culturally Muslim than in areas that are culturally Orthodox or Buddhist (the highest male life expectancy being, actually, in Chechnya).
You know Russian, so you can get a reasonable idea of this by looking at goskomstat's nifty interactive health map: http://www.gks.ru/free_doc/2008/zdrav/zab_07_01.htm
--- On Thu, 1/15/09, Wojtek Sokolowski <swsokolowski at yahoo.com> wrote:
> From: Wojtek Sokolowski <swsokolowski at yahoo.com>
> Subject: [lbo-talk] Privatisation raised death rate
> To: "lbo-talk" <lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org>
> Date: Thursday, January 15, 2009, 7:34 AM
> http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7828901.stm
>
> Wojtek
>
>
>
>
> ___________________________________
> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk