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Sunday, August 19, 2007

Correspondence -
Alcohol consumption and public health in Russia


We thank Jürgen Rehm and Gerhard Gmel for their Comment (June 16, p 1975)1 on our paper (p 2001)2 on alcohol-related mortality in Russia. It is, however, necessary to correct some factual errors. They state that we provided no chemical analysis of non-beverage alcohols and that we did not consider the possibility that methanol poisoning might be important. In fact we
did provide data on the composition of non-beverage products, on the basis of our earlier detailed analysis of these substances (which Rehm and Gmel also cite).

Our key finding was that eau de colognes and medicinal tinctures were highly concentrated sources of ethanol, with no detectable quantities of methanol or long-chain alcohols. Although Rehm and Gmel are correct that we did not collect data on samogon (a home-produced spirit mainly found in rural areas), methanol is not usually found in home-produced Russian spirits because they are made from grain or sugar.
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Contributor: Philippe Arvers
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