Chefelf.com Night Life: US drops to #30 in infant mortality - Chefelf.com Night Life

I agree with Spoon, here. Although the mortality rate statistic is interesting... It doesn't mean the US WANTS dead kids.

It has now officially passed the United States of America, the richest country in the world, on one key measure of national well-being, namely, the infant mortality rate.

They attribute it to the high level of education of the Cuban population, the supportive social networks that are encouraged by the Cuban socialist government, the investment of Cuba in public health and health care, and the low AIDS and drug addiction rates in Cuba. These things are made possible by Cuban socialism.

In mid-February, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta revealed that the U.S. infant mortality rate now stands at 7 as of 2002, backsliding from 6.8 in 2001.

In early January, the Cuban Ministry of Health announced an infant mortality rate of 6.3, more than a half-point lower than the U.S.

There is huge demand and a market for body parts especially eyes, hearts and kidneys belonging to children. Estimates indicate that at least one million children have been kidnapped and killed in the past 20 years for organs. A kidney or eyes can fetch up to US $10,000 and a heart could cost US $50,000 or more. Estimates further indicate that money laundering in this deadly trade accounts for up to 10% of the world's GDP, or as much US $5 trillion. As a result, the black market for children's organs is expanding and more and more children are kidnapped and killed.

Those who take part in this trade make false promises about employment opportunities for the children and give money to the parents. Children are also stolen from orphanages, or handed over through a fake adoption process and killed for their organs. The intermediary may earn between US $50 and US $20, 000 per child according to the source countries. In many cases, impoverished parents are sometimes persuaded to sell their children's organs for as little as US $50

In Russia in late 2000, a grandmother was arrested for trying to sell her five-year-old grandson Andrei. With the help of the boy's uncle, the child was handed over to a man in exchange for US $90,000 who would then take him to "the West," where his kidneys and other organs would be removed and sold.

A research team led by Nancy Scheper-Hughes, Professor of Anthropology at Berkeley and one of the founding members of Organ Watch, has conducted comprehensive field research into the global trafficking of human organs and documented the practices of organ harvesting in many parts of the world, notably Argentina, Brazil, Cuba, Israel, Turkey, South Africa, the United States, the United Kingdom and Asia. This research shows that abuses range from the harvesting of organs from executed prisoners in China to the removal of organs from live and dead bodies in Argentina and South Africa without the permission and knowledge of the families of the deceased.

An American lawyer was arrested in Peru in 2004, after having exported a total of three thousand children in thirty months to the United States and Italy for organ transplants.

Latin America, Mexico and Brazil where human organ trafficking has been practiced for decades have the worst proven record of abuses against children for organ transplants.

The first official exposure was in 1986 in the Altiplano and Tamaulipas areas and the suburbs of San Luis in Latin America when children began disappearing rapidly and then returned to their families several weeks later with one kidney missing. The probe disclosed that the children had been taken to clinics near the U.S border.

A few years later, the police discovered several clandestine "nurseries" known as "casas de engorde" in Honduras. The children from here were illegally exported out of the country "for adoption." Investigations made a dramatic disclosure that the children were bought or stolen from poor families, and were sold for a minimum of US $10,000 each to organizations in the United States to be used as organ donors.

An adoption scandal also broke out in Italy in 1999 when 4000 Brazilian children arrived in Italy for adoption in four years. One thousand of them were located, however the other three thousand had disappeared without a trace. Two Italian judges, Angelo Gargani and Cesar Martinello went to Salvador de Bahia in Brazil. Upon their return, they warned the government that the Mafia was taking part in "human organ trafficking." These children were sent to clandestine clinics in Mexico and Thailand, as well as in Europe where they were dissected for their organs.

The trade continues to flourish even today. During the Dirty War in Argentina in the late 1970s and early 1980s, children were stolen and killed as physicians often collaborated with the military state. Anthropologist Marcelo Suarez Orozco (1987) described in lurid detail the abuse of children during the Dirty War. Babies and small children were kidnapped and then returned to their families with organs missing. In another case, in Ukraine, babies were stolen at birth and used for stem cell research. In 2005, media reports said that babies were taken from the mothers after delivery and parents were told that the babies had died after birth.

The trade, outlawed in all but a handful of countries, is legal and booming in Pakistan. According to a recent Pakistan Tribune report, frustrated by lengthy waiting lists at home and fearful of premature death, "transplant tourists," from Europe, the US and the Middle East are flocking to private Pakistani hospitals for operations which can be arranged in a matter days at a fraction of the cost in their native countries.


http://aawsat.com/en...ction=3&id=7723

Wow, good post, Orator.

Goes to show that you can't trust the media. (Not trying to step on any toes, not saying one media bias is worse or better than another media bias. I don't like the media, period. Or politicians. Or people, really.)