Re: 20 Advances to Be Thankful For

In article
<8fc9ed75-8c69-4765-9ab2-b0b34beb65c0@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
VoiceOfReason <papa_fox@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Dec 2, 3:51 am, John Wilkins <j...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
In article
<e1299d8d-6614-48b7-b74a-54ce8ad13...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,



VoiceOfReason <papa_...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Life Is Getting Measurably Better for Many People Here and Abroad

News about health often focuses on the negative: scary new flu
viruses, incurable diseases, dashed hopes for miracle drugs. Maybe
that's because we have such high expectations that doctors and
scientists can fix anything.

But amid all that bad news?not to mention the acrimony over health-
care reform?it's easy to overlook how much progress has been made in
recent years. Here are 20 health-care advances to give thanks for this
Thanksgiving:

? Nearly 62% of U.S. adults said they were in excellent or very good
health, along with 82% of their children, according to families
sampled by the federal government for the National Health Interview
Survey, which was conducted in 2007 and released this year.

However, physicians find that the US lags substantially behind the rest
of the developed world:

<http://www.commonwealthfund.org/Content/Publications/In-the-Literature/
2009/Jan/Health-Information-Technology-and-Physician-Perceptions-of-Qual
ity-of-Care-and-Satisfaction.aspx>



? Fewer Americans died in traffic fatalities in 2008 than in any year
since 1961, and fewer were injured than in any year since 1988, when
the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration began collecting
injury data. One possible reason: Seat-belt use hit a record high of
84% nationally.

And now you beat Tajikistan! Australia is 7.9 per ten thousand, Italy
is 9.6, the US is 13.9.



? Life expectancy in the U.S. reached an all-time high of 77.9 years
in 2007, the latest year for which statistics are available,
continuing a long upward trend. (That's 75.3 years for men and 80.4
years for women.)

At this rate you'll become better than 34th country in the world in
life expectancy! After Portugal, Ireland, Denmark, Cyprus, Jordan, the
UK, etc...





? Death rates dropped significantly for eight of the 15 leading causes
of death in the U.S., including cancer, heart disease, stroke,
hypertension, accidents, diabetes, homicides and pneumonia, from 2006
to 2007. (Of the top 15, only deaths from chronic lower respiratory
disease increased significantly.) The overall age-adjusted death rate
dropped to a new low of 760.3 deaths per 100,000 people?half of what
it was 60 years ago.

? The death rate from coronary heart disease dropped 34% from 1995 to
2005, though it is still the biggest single killer in the U.S. Deaths
from cardiovascular disease dropped 26% over the same period. Deaths
from stroke dropped 29% since 1999. Average total cholesterol in
adults aged 20 to 74 dropped to 197 milligrams per deciliter in 2008
from 222 in 1962.

? The death rate from cancer, the second-biggest killer, dropped 16%
from 1990 to 2006. That reflects declines in deaths due to lung,
prostate, stomach and colorectal cancers in men, and breast,
colorectal, uterine and stomach cancers in women.

Death rates in the US are very poor relative to other industrialised
nations. While things may be improving in the US relative to its past,
it is doing poorly compared to countries of comparable wealth.

Snip rest of meaningless statements.

Of course, there have been setbacks as well as many steps forward, and
the gains haven't been universally shared. The full effects of the
H1N1 virus are not yet known. Infant mortality remains high. Teen
pregnancy is up. Obesity is rising. Organ transplants are down. The
decline in cigarette smoking has stalled. But other breakthroughs loom
on the horizon, including personalized cancer medicines, promising
drugs for lupus and Lou Gehrig's disease, gene therapy and cancer
vaccines, and tests that may one day discern small deadly cancers from
larger, slower ones. Which should give us plenty more to be thankful
for next year.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405274870381990457455393001235...

http://tinyurl.com/yfmtup2

This is a grossly misleading list. America does very poorly compared to
what it spends on health and food, and no amount of spin will make that
smell any better.

You misunderstand my intent. I don't mean to imply that "We'ze better
than all them other folks," but rather to correct claims from 'some
people' about the state of health care and science. Do we have room
for improvement? HELL yes.

But given that the article begins

"amid all that bad news--not to mention the acrimony over health-care
reform--it's easy to overlook how much progress has been made in recent
years"

it is clearly intended rhetorically to defuse outrage against America's
parlous state of health cover. But when you look at what you *could* be
achieving for the same or less outlay, covering more people better than
you do, it is simply an egregious piece of propaganda.

.

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