Thursday, January 13, 2005

A Swiped Fact

Here's one I stole off "Blogging Blue," an interesting blog that I link to at left.
It comes from Nicholas Kristof's column in yesterday's Times:

"Here's a wrenching fact: If the U.S. had an infant mortality rate as good as Cuba's, we would save an additional 2,212 American babies a year. "Yes, Cuba's. Babies are less likely to survive in America, with a health care system that we think is the best in the world, than in impoverished and autocratic Cuba. According to the latest C.I.A. World Factbook, Cuba is one of 41 countries that have better infant mortality rates than the U.S. "Even more troubling, the rate in the U.S. has worsened recently. In every year since 1958, America's infant mortality rate improved, or at least held steady. But in 2002, it got worse: 7 babies died for each thousand live births, while that rate was 6.8 deaths the year before.'

Our blue blogger makes an interesting connection between this fact and Bush's supposed goal of a "culture of life." Read it.