The article by McKee and Shkolnikov is certainly effective at
conveying the idea that life expectancy for men in the former Soviet Union
is very low, but I suspect they are exaggerating the point. I do not know
exactly how many Russian infants in 1994 survived their first year, but I
reckon that at least a few managed to get to 1995, contrary to Figure 1.
Rather than announcing a tragedy for male babies on Biblical proportions,
I propose that the authors probably intended the bottom of the y-axis to
read "60," not "0." Please print a correction soon. Russian mothers will
thank you for it.
Rapid Response:
Life expectancy in Russia may be bad, but...
The article by McKee and Shkolnikov is certainly effective at
conveying the idea that life expectancy for men in the former Soviet Union
is very low, but I suspect they are exaggerating the point. I do not know
exactly how many Russian infants in 1994 survived their first year, but I
reckon that at least a few managed to get to 1995, contrary to Figure 1.
Rather than announcing a tragedy for male babies on Biblical proportions,
I propose that the authors probably intended the bottom of the y-axis to
read "60," not "0." Please print a correction soon. Russian mothers will
thank you for it.
Competing interests: No competing interests