Pharmacies poison Russians with cheap ethyl alcohol
An international group of scientists led by Artem Yurievich Gil conducted a study in 17 cities of Russia, which showed that cheap ethyl alcohol, not intended for drinking, is still available to the population of Russia. (The picture shows the shelves of a typical stall selling alcohol substitutes)."The results of a previous study conducted in one of the typical cities of Russia in the period from 2003 to 2005 indicate that 7% of men of working age consumed non–alcoholic alcohol inside," says Artem Gil, co–chairman of the Civil Initiative against Alcohol Abuse, "The use of concentrated ethyl alcohol is extremely harmful to health, is interconnected with other risk factors and is a powerful independent prognostic risk factor for death, indicating that a person is in the terminal stage of prolonged excessive alcohol consumption."
As Artyom explained, men who consume alcohol that is not intended for drinking (so-called surrogate alcohol) have a 9 times higher chance of dying than moderately drinking men of the same age.
"Non-drinking alcohol is an important, although not the only source of alcohol mortality. The main problem associated with the use of such alcohol is not the presence of toxic impurities, but the fact that "surrogates" are essentially very concentrated and cheap, and therefore affordable, ethanol," says Daria Khalturina, researcher at the Center for Civilizational and Regional Studies.
"Alcohol abuse, along with tobacco smoking, is the main cause of abnormally high mortality among Russians of working age. Moreover, the peculiarity of alcohol consumption in Russia is the one–time consumption of significant amounts of highly concentrated alcohol," says Kirill Danishevsky, a leading specialist at the Open Institute of Health, "While estimates of alcohol consumption in Russia were often underestimated. In surveys, the reason for the understatement was that respondents were lying, and in estimates based on sales data – because a significant part of the alcohol consumed is surrogates and "gray", tax–free alcohol."
In Russia, highly concentrated ethyl alcohol with an ethanol concentration of up to 90% is consumed in the form of alcohol-containing liquids that are not intended for use as alcoholic beverages. Such liquids include medical tinctures, antiseptic solutions, alcohol-containing antifreeze, hygienic solutions for taking baths (e.g. Troyar), aftershave lotions and colognes. A significant part of these liquids is only an aqueous solution of pure ethanol and has no medical, perfumery or additional technical properties.
During the study, scientists were able to easily and legally purchase such products in most of the surveyed cities of Russia, different in size and geographical location, although there were also cities where such alcohol could not be found. The most affordable source of cheap ethanol turned out to be medical tinctures with a volume of 100 ml. (e.g. hawthorn tincture), sold in pharmacies. At the same time, according to Kirill Danishevsky: "It is worth noting that none of the tinctures in modern medicine has any use as a medicine, they are either useless at all, like Hawthorn tincture, or have more effective and safe analogues."
These results empirically justify the need for stricter control over the production and sale of such products to the population. However, the results of the study showed that the measures taken in 2006 led to a decrease in the availability of pseudodecolones consumed by the population, but nevertheless, they did not lead to a decrease in the availability of cheap pharmacy tinctures with a high ethanol content. Despite the order of Roszdravnadzor dated 07.09.2006, regulating the prohibition of the sale of pharmacy tinctures with a volume of more than 25 ml., tinctures in 100 ml packaging were still available in the retail pharmacy chain.
Samples of some surrogates purchased in Russian cities in 2007Among the measures aimed at reducing the availability of non–drinking alcohol for the population, scientists have proposed such measures as increasing excise taxes on alcohol, reducing the concentration of ethyl alcohol in pharmacy tinctures to below 40%, the sale of pharmacy tinctures strictly according to a doctor's prescription, and preferably a complete ban on the production of medically useless tinctures with a high content of ethanol.
As for other alcohol–containing products, "... trade in non-denatured alcohol-containing liquids for technical purposes is illegal and is only an administrative offense, while, given the catastrophic mortality of consumers of these liquids, it should be considered a criminal offense," Daria Khalturina believes.
The article (Artem Gil, Olga Polikina, Natalia Koroleva, Martin McKee, Susanna Tomkins, David Leon "Availability and characteristics of non-drinking alcohol sold in 17 Russian cities in 2007") with a detailed description of the results of the study will be published in the 12th issue of the scientific journal "Narcology" in December 2008.
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Portal "Eternal youth" www.vechnayamolodost.ru11.11.2008