Comments on "The Worst of Both Worlds: Poverty and Politics in the Balkans"

Valerie J. Brown's article (1) delivers further evidence that the United States is very far from Central Europe. The Balkans, as it is taught even in elementary schools in Europe, is a well-defined geographic area, including Romania, Bulgaria, the former Yugoslav Republics, Albania, and Greece. Its northern boundary is the Carpathian Mountains. Sometimes Turkey is also included because of its close political connections to the region. From historical aspects, the Balkans were traditionally the range of influence of the great powers, such as the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, Russia, Italy, and the Ottoman and British Empires. The luxury of the insufficient knowledge on the geographic, ethnic, and cultural facts by the Western powers has caused irreparable damage and sorrow for the nations of this region up to now.

The recent conditions of the Balkan countries are determined by these historic, al and geographic factors On a historical scale, the 40-year communist era was only a flash for the involved countries. Therefore, the arbitrary use of the term "Balkans" is not acceptable in an analysis of the roots of recent environmental and public health problems. Brown (1) wanted to evaluate the different consequences of communism, but obviously had difficulty selecting the target countries. Countries were also indicated as CEE (Central and Eastern European) states many times, which is confusing. We wish that Brown had compared the special problems of the former Eastern bloc regions [the Balkans and the Visegrad countries (Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Hungary, and the former Soviet republics)]. It would have been a very interesting and encouraging paper.

Thus we request that another article be written to provide a thorough analysis of the health situation of the Balkan countries, perhaps by a local expert.

REFERENCES AND NOTES

(1.) Brown VJ. Focus: The worst of both worlds: poverty and politics in the Balkans. Environ Health Perspect 107:A606-613 (1999).

Csaba Varga
Istvan Ember
Department of Preventive Medicine,
University of P&s
Pes, Hungary

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