Cheap alcohol killing Russians

DRINKING 'surrogate' alcohol - such as eau de colognes and antiseptics - may be responsible for nearly half of all deaths among working-age men in Russia.The findings have been published in British medical journal The Lancet.
"It's an astounding finding," said Richard Peto, a professor of medical statistics and epidemiology at Oxford University, who was not connected to the study.
"Evidence is emerging from other areas to suggest this is a nationwide problem," Prof Peto said.The research suggests that despite Russia's economic resurgence in the past decade, it still faces social and health problems, especially in provincial areas. Dr Leon and colleagues concluded that 43 per cent of deaths were caused by hazardous drinking. They did not have statistics on the toll that regular alcohol took, but according to data from 2002, in the European subregion including Russia, 19 per cent of male mortality was attributable to all types of alcohol.
In Western Europe, the comparable figure was three per cent.The so-called "surrogate" alcohols cost a small fraction of what vodka costs, and they are available in kiosks and pharmacies on Russian streets."They're sold in a way that makes it blindingly obvious that they're for drinking," Dr Leon said. "Drinking surrogate alcohol is a very rapid way to finish yourself off."
The technique requires practice, since ingesting concentrated forms of ethanol can lead to a stripping away of lung cells if drinkers breathe in right after taking a swig. But whether men drank hazardous alcohol was the most potent predictor of mortality, Dr Leon said.Men who did so had an approximately sixfold increase in death compared with men who did not. The life expectancy of a Russian man was 59 years in 2004 - lower than the 62 years for a man in Bangladesh. Eau de colognes and medicinal tinctures typically contain as much as 97 per cent ethanol, compared with the 43 per cent in Russian vodka.
Alcoholism has long been linked to mortality in Russia.
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,21914198-401,00.html
PS:I remember years ago back home,we ahd already started to see an increased number of women addicted to "surrogate alcohol"such as eau de cologne,cause it's cheap.The problem is that most of these are based in methanol which is extremely toxic and causes blindness rather fast without the proper and quick treatment.Therefore we had lots of female patients,most of them with permanent blindness as a result.Very sad,but real situation in many parts of the world...!
As in the days of Noah....