. . . explains why the U.S. gets a bum rap on infant-mortality (and, by extension, average life-expectancy) comparisons among nations.

Bart, your response to my post is thoughtful but you also ought to hear the the ‘back room’ talk of (some) of the so-called professionals. Prejudice and intolerance of poor and/or non-paying patients is not absent from the profession of health care.

In fact, I could bring up some overt examples. Sadly, they are also local…

One guy—an African-American—was brought in by police, bloody and semi-mangled, handcuffed to the gurney. I think he just led police on a high-speed chase and wrecked. All he could do was moan “ooohhh, ohhh” and was writhing in pain.

The attending physician barked to the guy—that if he didn’t stop writhing he was gonna “knock the sh*t out of” (him).

Would physicians of this ilk give the same nasty treatment to, say, James Wheat or Robert Ukrop? Or anybody that seemed like they had a little dough, if they were writhing in pain?

Don’t kid yourself my friend.

Infant mortality in the US is not a big problem. Comparing our society, whatever that is, with unified, cohesive ones with common practices is not accurate. Everyone has their own “pet” theories such as “big medicine”, cervical cancer, lack of medical insurance, etc. but none of them effect infant mortality.

Any pregnant woman who arrives at an emergency room will be treated. By law any baby that arrives at an ER of a public funded hospital must be treated. One of the reasons, VCU is in financial trouble.

Look at it this way, Larry. Cervical cancer used to strike down women in droves. As the American Cancer Society explains:

“Cervical cancer was once one of the most common causes of cancer death for American women. Between 1955 and 1992, the number of cervical cancer deaths in the United States dropped by 74%. The main reason for this change is the increased use of the Pap test.“

So, now, a lot fewer women die of cervical cancer. The consequence of that is, many live long enough to come down with breast cancer, which now affects about 1 in 9 to 1 in 8 women.

Does this mean that medical science has shown a callous disregard for breast cancer? Of course not.

Likewise, the fact that the U.S. infant mortality rate has putatively risen doesn’t mean people today care less about babies than they used to.

Bart you’ve presented much stronger arguments, previously, then what you tossed-together for today’s column. We get a bum rap BECAUSE our infant mortality rate is so high (whatever happened to “taking responsiblity”?).

In Japan, infant mortality rates have—since the end of WWII—steadily declined to where its almost nil. Meanwhile, ours continues to steadily rise. Considering we are moving forward in time, isn’t our negative trend just a little backwards???

In our country “medicine” is a business. And businesses really don’t have any use for people who don’t have money to spend. You know that as well as I do. And THIS is our problem—ie., polluting both medicine and science with the “free market system.“

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