US among worst in world for infant death

The rate at which infants die in the United States has dropped substantially over the past half-century, but broad disparities remain among racial groups, and the country stacks up poorly next to other industrialized nations.

In 2004, the most recent year for which statistics are available, roughly seven babies died for every 1,000 live births before reaching their first birthday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says. That was down from about 26 in 1960.

Babies born to black mothers died at two and a half times the rate of those born to white mothers, according to the CDC figures.

The United States ranks near the bottom for infant survival rates among modernized nations. A Save the Children report last year placed the United States ahead of only Latvia, and tied with Hungary, Malta, Poland and Slovakia.

The same report noted the United States had more neonatologists and newborn intensive care beds per person than Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom - but still had a higher rate of infant mortality than any of those nations.

Doctors and analysts blame broad disparities in access to health care among racial and income groups in the United States.

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We're fat, we're poor and we're armed to the teeth.

Here are some things to chew on for today.

U.S. most armed country with 90 guns per 100 people

U.S. citizens own 270 million of the world's 875 million known firearms, according to the Small Arms Survey 2007 by the Geneva-based Graduate Institute of International Studies.

36.5 million live in poverty in United States

More than one in ten Americans, or 36.5 million people, live in poverty in the United States, with children and blacks the worst hit, an annual report by the US Census Bureau showed Tuesday.

The number of poor out of the total US population of 302 million was equivalent to the entire state of California -- paradoxically one of the richest states -- one-and-a-half times the population of Malaysia or nearly everyone in the central European nation of Poland living in poverty.

Obesity Continues To Grow In The United States


Mississippi, the country's fattest state for the third year running, has 30.6% of its adults citizens classed as obese - it is the first state to cross the 30% mark. The thinnest state is Colorado, where obesity rates rose to 17.6%, compared to 16.9% the previous year. Of the country's 15 fattest states ten are located in the south. Nineteen US states have obesity rates over 25%, compared to 14 the previous year. In 1991 the state with the highest obesity rate reported that 20% of its adults were obese.

Indiana is tied for the ninth highest obesity rate.

New York Times Editorial On Healthcare

This editorial lists how the US ranks almost last in every healthcare category:

For those of you too lazy to read it, here are some of the highlights:

* All other major industrialized nations provide universal health coverage, and most of them have comprehensive benefit packages with no cost-sharing by the patients. The United States, to its shame, has some 45 million people without health insurance and many more millions who have poor coverage.

* The United States ranks dead last on almost all measures of equity because we have the greatest disparity in the quality of care given to richer and poorer citizens. Americans with below-average incomes are much less likely than their counterparts in other industrialized nations to see a doctor when sick, to fill prescriptions or to get needed tests and follow-up care.

* We have known for years that America has a high infant mortality rate, so it is no surprise that we rank last among 23 nations by that yardstick. But the problem is much broader. We rank near the bottom in healthy life expectancy at age 60, and 15th among 19 countries in deaths from a wide range of illnesses that would not have been fatal if treated with timely and effective care.

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