I. Experts Say the Health of the Nation is in Peril

On March 28 at the Labor Institute, the Realists Club put on a discussion of the concept of a new policy in the area of public health developed by a group of scholars from the Moscow Health Problems Center of the government of Moscow, the International Institute of Rehabilitation Medicine, and the Sechenov Moscow Medical Academy. A group of experts from the public took part in the discussion.

In the opinion of Alexander Razumov, a Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences, who headed up the development of this concept, the nation's health is in peril today. It is enough to point out that statistically for every healthy newborn child there are ten who are ill, and only one will be healthy at the time they finish school.

The experts from the public likewise pointed out the contrast that today Russian public health is forced to provide only medical assistance, and the governmental resources allotted for this work are hardly sufficient. In 1997 the expenditures on public health make up only 1.6 per cent of the budget, and of this amount none is intended for preventative medicine. At the same time, in America 13.7 per cent of the budget goes to finance public health, and more than half of these resources go specifically to preventative medicine.

The decentralization of the public health system has caused it suffer a great loss. Therefore, the experts call upon the Ministry of Public Health to develop a new model of public health, the basis of which will be a reorientation of medical institutions and even of public consciousness toward preventing illness, to the protection of the health of healthy people. The conference also proposed the enactment of new laws and finance mechanisms to stabilize Russian medicine.

II. The Moscow Monarchy Center is Indignant at the Bombing of the Monument to Nicholas II in Taininskii

Elena Sergeevna Os'kina, the director of the Moscow Memorial Museum of the Imperial Family, told an ASI correspondent that the bombing of the monument to Nicholas II in the village of Taininsk in Moscow oblast during the night of April 1, 1997, has provoked profound indignation among the Russian nobility and Russian adherents of the idea of monarchism.

The press service of the All-Russian Monarchy Center has issued a release which states: "Without considering the artistic value of the monument, the administration of the All-Russian Monarchy Center considers its destruction an act directed toward the total elimination of any monarchical sentiment in Russian society. The perpetrators of this act are trying by any means possible to eradicate the historical memory of the people."

The authors of the release believe that the bombing of the monument on the day of the arrival in Russia of the widowed Grand Princess Leonida Georgievna, who was present at the opening of the monument in May, 1996, is a clearly expressed political act and represents an attempt at pressuring the Russian Orthodox Church at the time when the question of the canonization of the imperial martyrs [Nicholas II and his family--Trans.] is nearly decided.

Moreover, the release says, not one attack on the leaders of Russian monarchical organizations has been solved. "This shows yet again the absence in Russia of true freedom of conscience and the continuous violations of human rights."

Telephone number of the All-Russian Monarchy Center: 963-8995.

III.The Women and Children of the Mozhaisk Women's Penal Colony Need Help

According to Moscow oblast social foundation for the assistance of prisoners "FOPOZ," at the present time the situation in places of confinement has become severe: there is insufficient food, medicines, and clothing, and the cells are over full.

FOPOZ, which has existed since January, 1996, assists those confined in prisons and jails as well as vulnerable elements of the population. It has provided assistance in excess of 4 billion rubles in the form of medicines, clothes, and food.

At the end of April FOPOZ, together with the oblast Red Cross and other organizations, will take part in a charity trip to the Mozhaisk Women's Penal Colony. The Children's Home on the grounds of the colony, which houses children up to the age of three years, needs help.

Those who wish to help the women and children of this colony may participate in this trip.

Telephone: 527-7053 (D. M. Shishkanov, President of the foundation.)

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