Murray Feshbach, the world's foremost specialist on Soviet health and population, and Alfred Friendly, Jr., a Moscow correspondent turned environmental writer, give the first authoritative measure of the Soviet ecological breakdown, the political forces it has aroused, and the costs of repairing the damage.In 103 cities, home to seventy million people, the air is unfit to breathe...Pollution fouls 75 percent of the surface water...Four out of five rural hospitals lack hot water, and surgeons make do with razor blades in place of scalpels...An inland sea turns to desert...Infant mortality rises and life expectancy falls...The medical and environmental crisis that burst over the USSR in the Gorbachev years developed in secrecy, but exploded--along with Chernobyl--in civic protest against the polluters who squandered resources and the people's health and against the leadership that deprived the sick of modern medicines and humane care.The cost of any cure will be high in time, funds, and technology, but the Soviets' lethal neglect and abuse of nature carries consequences no citizen of the planet can dare ignore. Read Less