Gideon Polya, “Killing Them Softly – Cold War Still Killing Hungarians”, MWC News, submitted 27 January 2006..
Killing Them Softly – Cold War Still Killing Hungarians
Rational, “world’s best practice” risk management (most notably practiced in potentially dangerous areas such as heavy industry, defence and aviation) involves a three-fold protocol of reportage, scientific analysis and systemic change. This risk management protocol can be sensibly applied to all areas of human activity. Thus there should be untrammeled reportage of the facts followed by critical sifting of the evidence and finally sensible, systemic changes emplaced to minimize risk.
The rational risk management protocol of untrammeled reportage, scientific analysis and systemic change stands in stark contrast to what TYPICALLY happens in most areas of human activity, namely constraint on reportage (through intimidation, “shoot the messenger”, censorship and self-censorship); un-scientific, perverted analysis (through partisan, political, quid pro quo, corrupt and spin-oriented processes); and, finally, avoidance of any sensible systemic change by counter-productive punishment of suitable victims (suitable patsies, fall guys and little guys – and, of course, the whistleblowers).
The aftermaths of Pearl Harbor and 9/11 provide very good examples of the counterproductive “lying, corruption and victimization” approach to risk management. For 65 years Anglo-American history books have roundly dismissed “conspiracy theories” about Pearl Harbor but I am adamantly assured by a senior Japanese scholar that his Japanese scholarly peers generally believe from sound evidence that the US knew that the attack was coming.
Today the official “Bush version” of 9/11 (who on earth would believe a “Bush version” of anything?) is blindly accepted by mainstream media but authoritative scholars and highly-placed officials (e.g. Professor Morgan Reynolds, Professor David Griffin, Andreas von Bulow and General Leonid Ivashov) are variously indicating the likelihood of alternative versions involving criminal complicity of Israel and the US.
There has been a 5 century process of “rubbing out” or minimizing horrendous European crimes against humanity (from the genocide of the Amerindians to the continuing mass murder of Afghans). This “lying by omission” is now firmly entrenched by mainstream media not only in the criminal First World countries but also in the victim societies due to First World global hegemony. Thus publicly-available UNICEF and other UN data clearly indicate that the post-invasion avoidable mortality and under-5 infant mortality are 2.1 million and 1.7 million, respectively, in Coalition-occupied Iraq and Afghanistan – but global mainstream media, including Third World media in general, will simply NOT report this horrendous war crime that has now been referred to the International Criminal Court (see: http://www.countercurrents.org/us-polya211205.htm).
Below is a FURTHER EXAMPLE of the IGNORING of palpable realities. It takes the form of a LETTER (“What is killing Hungarians?”) variously sent on 26 January 2006 with slight variations to governments and mainstream media of Central and Eastern European countries that are victims of an extraordinary ELEVATED EXCESS MORTALITY associated with Cold War Soviet occupation. It is early days yet and hopefully I will be proved wrong, but I suspect that in the coming days, weeks, months and years I will have to comment that the SILENCE IS DEAFENING - just watch this space! My letter in essence is reproduced below.
[January 2010 note: no doubt strains of Communist dictatorship contributed to drinking and smoking and hence to avoidable death. A further reason advanced to me by a leading Hungarian political figure in response to the letter below was the much higher mortality in the substantial Hungarian Gypsy population - indeed if that the the major cause of the overall statistic then it should be vigorously addressed by Government health policy changes ].
What is killing Hungarians?
I am an Australian scientist and writer of Hungarian origins and am presently editing the third draft of a huge book on global avoidable mortality.
The post-1950 avoidable mortality has been abnormally high in Hungary (and in some other formerly Soviet-occupied Eastern European countries) since the 1960s.
Avoidable mortality (excess mortality) is the difference between the ACTUAL deaths in a country and the deaths EXPECTED for a peaceful, well-administered country with the same demographics.
Using United Nations data, avoidable mortality (technically, excess mortality) has been calculated for every country in the world since 1950.
In order to make comparisons, it is useful to calculate the post-1950 avoidable mortality/2005 population ratio for different countries and regions of the world.
The post-1950 avoidable mortality/2005 population ratio for Hungary is 1.363 million/9.784 million = 13.9%, the highest value for any Eastern European country and the highest for any European country in the world – thus the value for this parameter is 2.7% (for Overseas Europe i.e. the US, Israel, Australia, New Zealand and Canada), 5.0% (Western Europe), 7.5 % (Eastern Europe), 9.4% (Latin America and the Caribbean), 10.9% (East Asia), 20.7% (Turkey, Iran and Central Asia), 23.0% (Arab North Africa and Middle East), 25.1% (South East Asia), 27.3% (the Pacific), 31.9% (South Asia) and 43.2% (non-Arab Africa).
The serious post-1950 avoidable mortality outcome for Hungary is NOT reflected in infant mortality statistics – Hungary has one of the better infant mortality outcomes in Eastern Europe and indeed in the world.
Thus the post-1950 under-5 infant mortality/2005 population ratio is 2.9% for Hungary as compared to a value of 1.5% (Overseas Europe), 1.7% (Western Europe), 3.8 % (Eastern Europe), 9.7% (Latin America and the Caribbean), 10.7% (East Asia), 17.0% (Turkey, Iran and Central Asia), 15.4% (Arab North Africa and Middle East), 12.8% (South East Asia), 13.0% (the Pacific), 19.5% (South Asia) and 27.3% (non-Arab Africa).
The dynamics of this process can be assessed by considering Hungarian avoidable mortality (in millions, m) in successive 5-year periods (pentades) since 1950: 1950-1955 (0.062m), 1955-1960 (0.010m), 1960-1965 (0.005m), 1965-1970 (0.046m), 1970-1975 (0.094m), 1975-1980 (0.149m), 1980-1985 (0.197m), 1985-1990 (0.199m), 1990-1995 (0.221m), 1995-2000 (0.207m), 2000-2005 (0.173m).
The Hungarian avoidable mortality catastrophe took off in the 1960s and has averaged about 30,000-40,000 avoidable deaths EACH year since about 1975.
This abnormally high Hungarian avoidable mortality has been picked up in other epidemiological studies (e.g. see Treurniet et al., Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health, vol. 58, pp290-295, 2004:
http://jech.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/58/4/290).
Other formerly Russian-occupied countries in Eastern Europe with abnormally high post-1950 avoidable mortality/2005 population ratios include Bulgaria (9.9%), the Czech Republic (10.6%), Estonia (12.8%), Latvia (12.7%) and the Ukraine (11.0%).
Significantly, the major Continental Western European countries with the highest average post-1950 avoidable mortality/2005 population ratios are Austria (9.0%) and Germany (8.6%), countries that were subject to partial Soviet occupation.
One could speculate about excessive smoking, excessive drinking, depression, social laxity, industrial pollution and un-reported radiological contamination events as contributing factors for this Hungarian and indeed European catastrophe. The dynamics suggest that if one major cause was imposed from about 1945 onwards, then the effects took about 20 years to manifest.
An unpleasant possibility derives from revelations of Soviet-era secret police use of radioactive tagging as a means of tracking dissidents. Such dangerous radioactive tagging employed by the East German secret police (the Stasi) is discussed in Ann Funder’s book “Stasiland” (Chapter 19; Text, Melbourne, 2002).
East German scientist Dr Klaus Becker has revealed documentary evidence from Stasi files of the deliberate contamination of victims, their documents or money with dangerous amounts of the beta- and gamma-emitter scandium-46 (half-life 83.83 days) to enable the tracking of dissidents (reported in New Scientist and other mainstream media; see: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2001/01/04/wstas04.xml).
Consistent with this possibility is long-term expression of cancers in irradiated people, secret police surveillance of very large numbers of Eastern Europeans and the pro-independence and “front-line” nature of all the affected countries. Was radiological contamination of dissidents more widely applied by the secret police in front-line Eastern European countries of the Soviet Empire?
Similar careful analysis of United Nations mortality data has revealed that the post-invasion avoidable mortality in Occupied Iraq and Afghanistan now totals 2.1 million through non-provision of life-sustaining requisites by the US-led Coalition in violation of the Geneva Conventions. Indeed this ongoing crime is now the subject of a formal complaint to the International Criminal Court (see: http://www.countercurrents.org/us-polya211205.htm). The continuing avoidable mortality of some 35,000 Hungarians each year demands urgent investigation and public discussion.
Yours sincerely,
Dr Gideon Polya
Melbourne, Australia
e-mail: gpolya@optusnet.com.au
website: http://members.optusnet.com.au/~gpolya/links.html
Credentials: Dr Gideon Polya published some 130 works in a 4 decade scientific career, most recently a huge pharmacological reference text "Biochemical Targets of Plant Bioactive Compounds" (Taylor & Francis, New York & London, 2003), and is currently editing a completed book on global avoidable mortality (numerous articles on this matter can be found by a simple Google search for "Gideon Polya" and on his website: http://members.optusnet.com.au/~gpolya/links.html).
Hungarian connection: Gideon Polya’s paternal lineage dates back to the early 19th century in Békésszentandrás, Hungary. His great-grandfather Jakab Pólya (née Pollak) was a lawyer-economist academician (who wrote many books and translated Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations into Hungarian), his grandfather was the surgeon Jenö Pólya (the Pólya gastrectomy) and his great-uncle was the mathematician George (György) Pólya (author of How to Solve It).