Alcohol kills over half of Russians in prime-study
MOSCOW, June 26 (Reuters) - Cheap and illicit alcohol kills more than half Russian men and women in their most productive years and the government must act urgently to reverse the trend, a study to be published in The Lancet at the weekend said.
“Excessive alcohol consumption in Russia, particularly by men, has in several recent years caused more than half of all the deaths at ages of 15-54 years,” the Lancet article said.
Both your lead paragraph and your headline have the same error.
Alcohol does not kill half of all Russians in their most productive years. Rather, half of all deaths of Russians in their most productive years are killed by alcohol.
That’s a very important difference. Half of all deaths is a number in the hundreds of thousands; which is very high to be sure. If your paragraph were accurate than tens of millions of Russians would be dying.
M.A.K.
Yes. The story later makes clear what we meant, but the headline and lead are indeed misleading: GBU Editor
A man drinks antiseptic alcohol on a street in central Moscow in a 2006 file photo. REUTERS/Thomas Peter
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“Alcohol Kills Over Half of Russians in Prime - Study”:
-Docs pick up some 10 russians off the street and give them booze. Then 5 die. I wonder if they signed a Consent and Release Form.
To paraphrase Motorhead’s “Killed By Death:
-”Rather, half of all deaths of Russians in their most productive years are killed by alcohol.”
- Posted by Dan is on a roll