http://money.msn.com/now/post.aspx?post=33f50404-82bb-4a54-bdf8-a1a403650790
The ongoing debt crisis in Europe isn't just crippling government finances and individual savings. It's also placing a heavy burden on national health care systems as drastic budget cuts undermine some essential health and public safety programs.
A new study by the British medical journal The Lancet (summarized in the publication's press release) finds that since the start of the economic crisis in 2009, infectious diseases and illnesses long considered part of Western Europe's past -- like tuberculosis, malaria and dengue fever -- are making a comeback due to health care budget cuts in many EU nations.
"Within the measures that were imposed by the troika (of the European Union, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund), there were requirements to cut back on some of the clinics treating infectious disease," Martin McKee, one of the study's authors, recently told the German broadcaster Deutsche Welle.
Overall death rates in Europe are also up, as are the number of mental health cases and suicides.