| Politicians love sweeping slogans and generalizations | | | | details, explanation and enlightenment ensues: |
| (most often, being quite effective): "Canadian Health | | | | America has three times the proportion of teen-age |
| Care, Even With Queues, Bests US", was a recent | | | | mothers, resulting in more premature low-birth-weight |
| report; infant mortality was cited to be 34% higher in | | | | babies - adolescent pregnancies, drug abuse, drinking |
| the US. An Oct. 2008 report from the Center for | | | | and smoking - are culture factors that cause |
| Disease Control placed the US at 29th in infant | | | | teen-age pregnancies. Of significance is the hard fact |
| mortality, tied with Slovakia and trailing Hungary and | | | | that in each age category of birth-mothers, the US |
| Cuba, (A recent Commentary magazine is entitled | | | | has equal or better infant survival statistics. |
| "We're Number Two?" by Thomas Hazlett). Are such | | | | Comparisons made between Cuba (5.8 deaths per |
| statements - seemingly statistical - believable and | | | | 1000) and the US (6.9 deaths per 1000 - 19% higher) |
| true? Probable reaction by the average American is | | | | can be similarly challenged: Author Hazlett quotes: |
| "How can that be?", but then comes a pervasive | | | | "Michael Moore's film 'Sicko' revels in rankings that |
| thought, "But if that's what the data shows -!" | | | | place Cuba ahead of America in the infant-mortality |
| Americans are proud of our country's achievements | | | | race." However, a key factor is the criterion of what |
| in all fields, especially in technology and medicine, all | | | | constitutes infant "death": in Cuba there is a far |
| aspects of them, and a comparative statement that | | | | higher mortality of the birthing mothers themselves, |
| faults the US re infant mortality evokes widespread | | | | thus infant death is eliminated from the mortality |
| interest and is particularly troublesome - everyone | | | | total. Interestingly, for Cubans living in the US (an |
| loves infants, so helpless and endearing. Thus, infant | | | | "apple to apple" comparison), the rate is only 4.2 |
| mortality behind third-world countries - what are the | | | | deaths per thousand, or infant mortality is 28% lower |
| apples-to-apples facts? The US, with supposedly top | | | | in the US than in Cuba. |
| medical requirements, with all births taking place in | | | | Noteworthy also, is the fact that that in the US the |
| modern, sanitary hospitals, germ-free, with trained | | | | health-care system makes Herculean attempts to |
| nurses and doctors and medicines and all types of | | | | save low-birth-weight and premature babies, even |
| equipment - lagging third-world countries with their | | | | operations within the womb being routinely |
| mid-wives, babies born under all conditions, certainly | | | | performed in the US. All such situations are deemed |
| not to the standards of the US! How can that be | | | | miscarriages in other cultures and countries, thus not |
| true? | | | | tabulated as infant mortality. |
| Denigrating America data are seized upon by | | | | Politics and spurious correlations aside (and |
| health-care-reform advocates - example, comparing | | | | notwithstanding the widespread desire and need for |
| Canada, with its mandatory public health insurance, to | | | | beneficial Health Care reform), the health care |
| the US with its primarily private insurance: the US has | | | | provided by the US medical system sees, indeed, to |
| 6.9 deaths per 1000 births whereas Canada has only | | | | be the best in the world. |
| 5.3, almost a fourth less. However, in examining the | | | | |