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How government spending cuts put lives at risk

Nature volume 465, page 289 (2010)Cite this article

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World leaders currently making tough economic decisions should be guided by the physicians' mantra: “First, do no harm”. Austerity programmes, even if justifiable in terms of promoting growth (itself highly questionable), may exacerbate the health risks posed by financial crises.

Inflicting short-term pain constitutes a massive, uncontrolled experiment with people's lives. Recessions themselves pose a risk to health, but empirical data reveal that the decisions made by governments crucially determine how bad the outcome will be.

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  1. Department of Sociology, Oxford University, Oxford, OX1 1DP, UK

    David Stuckler

  2. Department of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco, California, USA

    Sanjay Basu

  3. London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London, UK

    Martin McKee

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  1. David Stuckler
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  2. Sanjay Basu
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  3. Martin McKee
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Stuckler, D., Basu, S. & McKee, M. How government spending cuts put lives at risk. Nature 465, 289 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/465289a

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