Link → Do IMF loans lead to higher rates of tuberculosis?
Sydney Spiesel in the July 22, 2008 edition of Slate Magazine discusses a new paper that argues a nation’s health declines upon accepting an IMF loan. “In all of the countries under scrutiny, as IMF loans increased, so did tuberculosis death rates. For every 1 percent increase in credit, the TB mortality rate climbed by 0.9 percent. The longer IMF loans lasted, the greater the rate of tuberculosis deaths: Every extra year of money was associated with about a 4 percent increase in deaths.” The reason? “The stringent conditions attached to IMF loans often lead to cutbacks in employing [public health] workers [responsible for implementing DOTS].” An interesting read about a counterintuitive result.