Somehow This Seems a Bit Contrived…

I was interested to read the very breathless article from CNN titled ” U.S. has second worst newborn death rate in modern world, report says.” (Note that “modern world” means “wealthy world,” not “contemporary world,” which is more than a bit misleading.) I wonder whether that has anything to do with a few factors that might be relevant: A) much greater rates of immigration of very poor people to the U.S., such that early deaths (due to low birth weight or other factors) that would have happened in Tegucigalpa are now happening in LA (note the emphasis on the disproportionate rate of early infant death among minorities), whereas rather than happening in Lyon they are still happening in Niger; B) the great emphasis on delivery of low birth weight infants in the U.S.

There is certainly something that needs explaining here, but I am suspicious about breathless news releases from groups such as Save the Children.



2 Responses to “Somehow This Seems a Bit Contrived…”

  1. Ryan Young

    Different countries tabulate their statistics differently, so Save the Children was able to make their claim by not accounting for that. Premature births that survive for only a short time are not counted at all in many nations’ statistics, but they are counted in the U.S.

    Basically, the study compares apples and oranges, but they don’t say so.

    It is worth noting that “difficult” births have a higher survival rate in the U.S. than difficult births in most of the “modern world,” as CNN puts it.

    I believe that refutation of Save the Children’s argument (which has also been made elsewhere) came from Olaf Gersemann’s Cowboy Capitalism, but memory eludes me. I’m sure one of your readers will be kind enough to correct me if I’m wrong.