Joanna
ira glazer wrote:
>The latest WHO world health report (2004) is available at:
>(this is the latest report available -- most of these statistics are from
>2002, with some from 2001 or even 2000)
>
>http://www.who.int/whr/2004/en/
>
>But just to give you an idea, for the Americas, the only countries classified
>as having 'very low child and very low adult mortality' are
>Canada, the United States, and .... Cuba. These are the only countries in the
>Americas classified as 'developed' with regard to the irrelevant and frivolous
>parameters of child and adult mortality. Kind of gives a different twist to
>the orthodox economic meaning of 'development'.
>
>With regard to infant mortality and under-five mortality rates, the infant
>mortality rate in Cuba is 7 per 1000 live births, while the under-five rate is
>9 per 1000 live births -- the exact same as for that other impoverished,
>economically backward country, the United States of America.
>
>Since obviously the U.S.'s statistics are skewed by its barbaric inequalities
>in social welfare, it's instructive to compare Cuba's rates with those for
>other developed countries ('developed' in the official sense of the word).
>New Zealand's rates are 6 per 1000 live births for infant mortality, and 8
>per 1000 live births for under-five mortality, while the rates for Ireland,
>the country that the Economist magazine just annointed as having the highest
>quality of life in the world -- or some such thing -- are 6 per 1000 live
>births for infant mortality and 7 per 1000 live births for under-five mortality.
>
>With regard to life expectancy, a Cuban's life expectancy at birth in 2002
>(regardless of sex) was 77.1 years -- way less than that for the
>extremely poor, third world nation of Belgium -- 78.4 years -- and not even
>comparable to that for a citizen of the most destitute superpower in the
>history of the world, the United States of America -- 77.3 years.
>
>
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