Russia Economy DA

8/14/2019 Russia Economy DA

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However, the Russian economy is plagued by serious problems. While investment in

manufacturing and other industries has significantly increased over the past several years,

the oil and gas industries are still the linchpin of Russia’s economic boom. This places the

country in a precarious position, as any decline in energy prices on the world market , or

challenges to its geopolitical position in the world’s oil producing and transportation areas, would be a significant blow to the

country’s economy.

ImpactsA. If Russia’s economy is allowed to collapse, drug resistant TB will run unstopped across the

globe

Science Daily, 9/16/1998. “Multi Drug Resistant-TB: Russian Economic Collapse Will Lead To Global Spread Of "Ebola With Wings";

Institute http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1998/09/980916074355.htm .

Multi Drug Resistant-TB: Russian Economic Collapse will Lead to Global Spread of "Ebola with Wings"

Foreign Funds are Needed to Prevent Epidemic Our three nongovernmental organizations are calling for an urgent worldwide campaign to raise

the $100 million needed to prevent the imminent epidemic of multidrug resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) in Russia.

In our view, this local humanitarian disaster is already a direct global public health threat. Drug-senstive TB is curable

through proper drug therapy. MDR-TB is potentially much more dangerous, especially becauseTB spreads through the air and can move from patient to patient in its deadly drug-

resistant form. MDR-TB has been dubbed "Ebola with wings." Current levels of MDR-TB in Russia are alarming. The looming

economic crisis will exacerbate the problem. It is only a matter of time before MDR-TB of Russian origin becomes a

daily reality in other countries worldwide. The current Russian economic crisis will further deplete already

strained resources of public medicine. The resulting shortage of anti-TB drugs will

inevitably lead to the massive practice of substandard antibiotic treatment of patients with

TB, which is the principal cause of MDR-TB. Standard treatment of regular TB consists of

a daily regimen of four different antibiotics for six months. When this treatment is

incomplete or interrupted, a patient can easily develop MDR-TB and then spread this

potentially lethal form of TB to other people. We are particularly concerned about the dire situation in Russian prisons,

where systematic underfunding combined with epidemic-prone conditions already has resulted in the generation of nearly 20,000 MDR-TB cases.

The number of cases is expected to rise because, under the current conditions, about 100,000 inmates with regular TB are subjected toinappropriate, MDR-causing treatment protocols. Among the civilian population, TB patients undergoing treatment often are required to pay for

their own drugs, even in state run hospitals. In the worsening economic situation, this burden on patients will

translate into inadequate treatment and, consequently, thousands of new MDR-TB cases because most people will

discontinue prescribed treatment as soon as symptoms subside.

An outbreak of MDR TB would threaten everyone on the planet, it is passed along through

normal daily activities, and no SQ drugs or tests are effective

English People’s Daily 2008 Alarming! drug-resistant TB spreads faster than feared February 27, 2008

http://english.people.com.cn/90001/90782/6361814.html

Tuberculosis can be relatively easily transmitted from an infected individual to a healthy

person in saliva droplets through coughing, sneezing, singing and other activities. "Multi-drugresistant TB is a threat to every person on the planet," said Mark Harrington, executive director of Treatment

Action Group. "It's not like HIV, where you are only infected through specific actions. TB is a

threat to every person who takes a train or a plane." Experts said new drugs are needed if the outbreak is to be

curbed, along with new diagnostic tests to identify drug-resistant TB strains faster.

HIV/AIDS."

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1998/09/980916074355.htm






Extensions

Saudi Arabia is empirically willing and able to make oil prices sink

Powell 03 Bill Powell may 12 2002 Fortune Magazine Don't Mess With The Saudis As the U.S. starts rebuilding Iraq's oil industry, it'll

learn one fact fast: Saudi Arabia still runs the show. http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2003/05/12/342302/index.htm

This, of course, was not on the agenda at the OPEC meeting in Vienna, but psychology in oil markets will change significantly when Iraqi

production is back at respectable levels in several months. The Saudis "won't let things get out of hand," says Verleger. "They have

enough clout that they can decide to crank up production and encourage people to slow down."The Saudis, in other words, might strangle the baby before it gets too big. They've done it before (in the 1980s, for example,

when Nigeria and other OPEC producers cheated on their production quotas, the Saudis flooded the market and drove

prices down dramatically).

A drop in oil prices will collapse Russia’s economy

Satter 03 The National Interest Summer 2003 A Low, Dishonest Decadence: A Letter from Moscow. It is shortsighted to judge Russia's pro-

gress by superficial materialist measures--or have we forgotten what the Cold War was really about? David Satter http://eng.terror99.ru/publica-tions/100.htm

The problems of lawlessness, lack of respect for human life and moral disorientation shadow the visible changes in Moscow that have ledmany to describe Russia as a political and economic success. The improved appearance of

Moscow (although not the rest of the country) is indisputable, but it is mainly a product of

the high price of oil. Every dollar difference in the price of oil translates into roughly $1 bil-

lion in budget revenue; a high price for oil has therefore become the key to the govern-

ment's ability to balance the budget, pay state employees and repay Russia's foreign debt.

If the price should fall significantly and stay relatively low, as it did in much of the 1980s and 1990s, Russia will be

plunged into a severe economic crisis. At that point, the invisible moral factors in Russia's situation will be become critical

to its stability.

The Russian economy has doubled because of oil and is growing at 10% per year

The Economist 08. Crisis? What oil crisis? June5 2008

http://www.economist.com/research/articlesBySubject/displaystory.cfm?subjectid=349002&story_id=11496858





But there is one country where the high oil price is powering the expansion of the market,

rather than painful restructuring. Thanks to abundant natural resources, Russia's

economy has grown by an average of 7% a year for the past decade . Real disposable income has

nearly doubled in the past five years and is growing by more than 10% a year. That means a lot of

Russians can suddenly afford to buy cars.

Curable TB kills as many people as AIDS and Malaria, but MDR TB is much more contagious and

deadly. If it got out of control it would be a global health disaster

Stanford Report, 8/9/2006. http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2006/august9/tbstudy-080906.html .

The emergence of drug-resistant strains of tuberculosis throughout the world is a far

greater risk to human health than medical experts had assumed, according to Stanford University

scientists. This finding is based on a Stanford-led study of patients infected with mutant strains of the bacterium that causes

tuberculosis. The results of the study, published in the journal Science, challenge a fundamental principle of

evolutionary medicine and may lead epidemiologists to rethink their strategy for preventing the global spread of this highly

contagious respiratory disease, researchers say. "Until this study, medical dogma had been that when a bacterium develops

resistance to a drug, it becomes weaker as a human pathogen," said Stanford epidemiologist Gary K.

Schoolnik, co-author of the June 30 Science study. "According to that very rosy scenario, drug-resistant

strains should eventually extinguish themselves in the environment, because they can't

compete with the original, drug-susceptible organism. But we found the opposite to be true,

and that has very ominous implications for the spread of tuberculosis throughout the

world." Global epidemic Tuberculosis is caused by a species of bacteria called Mycobacterium tuberculosis, which can

be transmitted through the air when an infected patient coughs or sneezes. If not controlled, the

bacterium may attack and destroy the lungs and other parts of the body. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that 2 billion people areinfected with latent M. tuberculosis, which usually remains dormant but may begin actively multiplying, especially if the person's immune systemweakens. Approximately 15 million people—primarily in Africa, Asia and Eastern Europe—have active tuberculosis disease, including about14,000 in the United States. "Worldwide there are roughly 12 million new active cases annually, and of those about 2 million will die every year,"

said Schoolnik, professor of medicine and of microbiology and immunology at Stanford. "As a global health threat,

tuberculosis assumes a significance that is only equaled by two other infectious diseases— malaria and

HIV/AIDS."

http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2006/august9/tbstudy-080906.html



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Russia Economy DA