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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TimF who wrote (349881)	9/8/2007 12:41:53 PM
From: tejek	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 1576894

Here we go, Tim. Do you see the correlation between wealth and lifespan. This one isn't cherry picked.....its reality. Thirty years: difference in life expectancy between the world's rich and poor peoples By Jeremy Laurance, Health Editor Published: 07 September 2007 Life expectancy in the richest countries of the world now exceeds the poorest by more than 30 years, figures show. The gap is widening across the world, with Western countries and the growing economies of Latin America and the Far East advancing more rapidly than Africa and the countries of the former Soviet Union. Average life expectancy in Britain and similar countries of the OECD was 78.8 in 2000-05, an increase of more than seven years since 1970-75 and almost 30 years over the past century. In sub-Saharan Africa, life expectancy has increased by just four months since 1970, to 46.1 years. Narrowing this "health gap" will involve going beyond the immediate causes of disease – poverty, poor sanitation and infection – to tackle the "causes of the causes" – the social hierarchies in which people live, the Global Commission on the Social Determinants of Health says in a report. Professor Sir Michael Marmot, chairman of the commission established by the World Health Organisation in 2005, who first coined the term "status syndrome", said social status was the key to tackling health inequalities worldwide. In the 1980s, in a series of ground-breaking studies among Whitehall civil servants, Professor Marmot showed that the risk of death among those on the lower rungs of the career ladder was four times higher than those at the top, and that the difference was linked with the degree of control the individuals had over their lives. He said yesterday that the same rule applied in poorer countries. If people increased their status and gained more control over their lives they improved their health because they were less vulnerable to the economic and environmental threats. "When people think about those in poor countries they tend to think about poverty, lack of housing, sanitation and exposure to infectious disease. But there is another issue, the social gradient in health which I called status syndrome. It is not just those at the bottom of the hierarchy who have worse health; it is all the way along the scale. Those second from the bottom have worse health than those above them but better health than those below." The interim report of the commission, in the online edition of The Lancet, says the effects of status syndrome extend from the bottom to the top of the hierarchy, with Swedish adults holding a PhD having a lower death rate than those with a master's degree. The study says: "The gradient is a worldwide occurrence, seen in low-income, middle-income and high-income countries. It means we are all implicated." The result is that even within rich countries such as Britain there are striking inequalities in life expectancy. The poorest men in Glasgow have a life expectancy of 54, lower than the average in India. The answer, the report says, is empowerment, of individuals, communities and whole countries. "Technical and medical solutions such as medical care are without doubt necessary. But they are insufficient." Professor Marmot said: "We talk about three kinds of empowerment. If people don't have the material necessities – food to eat, clothes for their children – they cannot be empowered. The second kind is psycho-social empowerment: more control over their lives. The third is political empowerment: having a voice." The commission's final report, to be published next May, will identify the ill effects of low status and make recommendations for how they can be tackled. In Britain a century ago, infant mortality among the rich was about 100 per 1,000 live births compared with 250 per 1,000 among the poor, a rate similar to that in Sierra Leone Infant mortality is still twice as high among the poor in Britain, but the rates have come down dramatically to 7 per 1,000 among the poor and 3.5 among the rich. Professor Marmot said: "We have made dramatic progress, but this is not about abolishing the rankings – there will always be hierarchies – but by identifying the ill effects of hierarchies we can make huge improvements." A ray of hope from the street vendors of Ahmedabad The women street vendors of Ahmedabad, India, have peddled their wares for generations, rising at dawn to buy flowers, fruit and vegetables from wholesalers in the markets before fanning out across the city. They frequently needed to borrow money, faced punitive rates of interest and were routinely harassed and evicted from their vending sites by local authorities. They were a typical example of disempowered women, prey to the evils of debt, loss of livelihood and ill health, until they campaigned to improve their status. With help from the Self-Employed Women's Association of India (Sewa), the vegetable sellers and growers set up their own wholesale vegetable shop, cutting out the middlemen who had exploited them. They also organised childcare, set up a bank for credit and petitioned for slum upgrading. To overcome possible health crises, when poor women frequently had to sell their possessions to raise money for treatment, Sewa set up a health insurance scheme for them. Emboldened by their links with Sewa, the vegetable sellers campaigned for the local authority to recognise them formally and strengthen their status by issuing street vending licences and identity cards, giving them security of employment. The campaign started in Gujarat and went all the way to the Supreme Court, attracting international attention. news.independent.co.uk

To: TimF who wrote (349881)	9/8/2007 2:26:27 PM
From: tejek	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1576894

I know this is an example of cherry picking but it comes straight from the horse's, I mean CDC's press room. What does it say about the American lifestyle that so many children are dependent on anti depression drugs and must suicide to find a way out? I am sure you will find a way to refute it. Youth Suicides Rise the Most in 15 Years, CDC Says (Update2) By Michelle Fay Cortez Sept. 6 (Bloomberg) -- Suicides among children and young adults in the U.S. rose 8 percent in 2004, the largest single- year increase since 1990, as use of anti-depression drugs fell, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. The biggest percentage jumps were recorded among girls aged 10 to 19 and boys aged 15 to 19, according to an analysis released by the agency today. Suicide accounted for 4,599 deaths in 2004, making it the third-leading killer among Americans ages 10 to 24, behind car crashes and homicides, the research found. While the annual CDC report didn't identify the cause, a fall in prescriptions for anti-depressants like GlaxoSmithKline Plc's Paxil and Eli Lilly & Co.'s Prozac may have played a role, officials said. Regulators warned about ties between the drugs and suicidal thoughts in children starting in 2003 and asked for a stricter warning on the dosing information to highlight the danger in September 2004, sending 2005 sales down 20 percent. ``It's true that antidepressant prescriptions in pediatric patients have come down, and that coincides with this one year up tick in adolescent suicides,'' said Thomas Laughren, director of the Food and Drug Administration's division of psychiatry products, in a conference call today. The agency will monitor suicides and anti-depressant use ``and take whatever regulatory actions we think are appropriate,'' he said Many Factors Laughren and other public health officials said it's still not clear whether the drop in anti-depressant use was responsible for the increase, since so many factors play a role in suicides. It's also not yet known whether the increase is part of a larger trend or a one-year aberration, said Ileana Arias, director of the CDC's National Center for Injury Prevention and Control. ``Either way, it's a harsh reminder that suicide and suicide attempts are affecting too many youth and young adults,'' Arias said. ``It's sobering and raises a great concern for us,'' she said on the call with reporters. The report found that hanging and suffocation are on the rise as a means of suicide among girls, accounting for half of all cases. The use of guns remained the primary method used by boys. The suicide rate among Americans ages 10 through 24 had fallen 28 percent since 1990, making the current rise particularly concerning, health officials said. The study, which tracks the latest available numbers, comes from the CDC's National Vital Statistics System, which records births, deaths, marriages and divorces. It was published on line in the weekly Morbidity and Mortality Report. Prescription Trends The number of new anti-depressant prescriptions written for children up to age 17 in the U.S. fell 22 percent from January 2003 through May 2007, according to Verispan LLC, a Yardley, Pennsylvania, research company. The most commonly used anti- depressants include Lilly's Cymbalta, Wyeth's Effexor, Glaxo's Wellbutrin and Forest Laboratories Inc.'s Lexapro. Mark Riddle, director of the division of child and adolescent psychiatry at Johns Hopkins Children's Center in Baltimore, said he thinks the declining use of anti-depressants is responsible. Some primary care and family physicians have stopped prescribing them completely for children because of the warnings and the legal concerns that accompany them, he said. ``It's probably reluctance on the part of clinicians to identify and treat kids with depression,'' Riddle said in a telephone interview. ``We know that any treatment for depression in teenagers is quite effective in reducing suicidal thoughts and suicide attempts. When you take away one of the treatments, you are just leaving more kids vulnerable for trouble.'' Nationwide Increase In 2004, 94 girls ages 10 to 14 killed themselves nationwide, up from 56 a year earlier, the report said. Among girls ages 15 to 19, there were 355 suicides, compared with 265 a year earlier. For boys aged 15 to 19, 1,345 killed themselves in 2004, up from 1,222. The findings underscore the need to recognize warning signs of suicide in young people, including talking about it, feeling sad or hopeless about the future or changing patterns in eating and sleeping, said Keri Lubell, a behavioral scientist at the agency's Injury Center and one of the authors. An earlier study by CDC researchers found many students in the U.S. regularly contemplate suicide. In that survey, 17 percent of high school students said they ``seriously considered'' killing themselves in the previous 12 months, and 13 percent actually devised a suicide plan. Almost 1 in 10 said they actually tried to take their own life. bloomberg.com