General Information

On Aug 8, 8:08hostingam, Raymond <> wrote:
> In spite of the rising health care costs that provide the illusion of
> improving health care, the American people do not enjoy good health,
> compared with their counterparts in the industrialized nations. hostingAmong
> thirteen countries including Japan, Sweden, France and Canada, the
> U.S. was ranked 12th, based on the measurement of 16 health indicators
> such as life expectancy, low-birth-weight averages andinfantmortality. hostingIn another comparison reported by the World Health
> Organization that used a different set of health indicators, the U.S.
> also fared poorly with a ranking of 15 among 25 industrialized
> nations.

One problem with this information: the US and other
industrialized countries are using different standards
to measure infant mortality.



An example from the article: in the US, over 1/3 of all
infant deaths are reported to happen in the first day.
In France, less than 1/6. In Hong Kong, less than 1/25.

This doesn't mean US hospitals are killing them
on their first day due to medical blunders - it means
that what many countries call stillbirths, and thus don't
include in their reporting, we call a live birth. Furthermore,
since we call extreme preemies "live births" - even if they
only live for a few minutes - this seriously skews both
our comparative infant mortality statistics, *and* our
comparative infant birthweight statistics.

Interesting how the US medical system is being
criticized for a statistic that looks to be a result
of them having the expertise, technology and will
to at least try and save these patients that other
countries have already written off as dead.

--
Walt