Slashdot Mirror

It's impossible to save people by burying the dead.

Yes, that's right - you can't catch death - it's not a communicable disease.

I refer you to the WHO :

http://whqlibdoc.who.int/paho/2004/DeadBodiesBook.pdf

Page 9

I did point out that a corpse of a person who had a contagious disease is dangerous. Does not change the fact that the effort required to try to bury the dead is far better applied elsewhere, or the fact that burying the dead in a hurry leads to haphazard burials where the corpses can contaminate the water table. If you find that there was a cholera epidemic in Burma when the storm hit, then you have identified an even more disastrous scenario than is being projected in the media. Do you have any such evidence, or are you just trying to challenge what I said? Because I'm not only speaking from experience (as a trained and sadly experienced relief worker), but also conveying information that comes from colleagues of mine who work in epidemiology, and presuming that you do not have an anti-government reflex, the Center for Disease Control, and the World Health Organization.

http://www.cdc.gov/Ncidod/eid/13/1/1.htm
http://www.who.int/bookorders/WHP/detart1.jsp?sesslan=1&codlan=1&codcol=63&codcch=167

Just out of curiosity, do you have any experience as a first responder in a disaster zone?
The way you dismiss burying the dead as "simple and easy" makes me doubt it. It's anything but simple and easy, it's a labor-intensive effort that puts more people in contact with the corpses than is necessary.

The WHO reports overall suicide rate in Japan to be 36.5/100000 for males and 14.1 for females, versus 17.6 and 4.1 respectively for United States, which averages out to more than 2.5 times higher average suicide rate.

Kamikazes and seppuku committing samurai have nothing to do with modern suicide rates in Japan. Even comparing the age distributions, Japan leads in suicide rates by a wide margin.

There is data available at http://www.who.int/mental_health/prevention/suicide/country_reports/en/index.html which contains PDFs split by country.

Here is some badly formatted data form the Japan PDF (at http://www.who.int/entity/mental_health/media/japa.pdf )

Number of suicides by age group and gender. JAPAN, 2004.

Age 5-14 15-24 25-34 35-44 45-54 55-64 65-74 75+ All
Males 27 1233 2677 3248 4807 5232 2659 1876 21955
Females 22 579 1088 935 1108 1592 1348 1595 8292
Total 49 1812 3765 4183 5915 6824 4007 3471 30247

There is data available at http://www.who.int/mental_health/prevention/suicide/country_reports/en/index.html which contains PDFs split by country.

Here is some badly formatted data form the Japan PDF (at http://www.who.int/entity/mental_health/media/japa.pdf )

Number of suicides by age group and gender. JAPAN, 2004.

Age 5-14 15-24 25-34 35-44 45-54 55-64 65-74 75+ All
Males 27 1233 2677 3248 4807 5232 2659 1876 21955
Females 22 579 1088 935 1108 1592 1348 1595 8292
Total 49 1812 3765 4183 5915 6824 4007 3471 30247

Thiomersal is one of those words that is more misspelled (as "thimerosal") than spelled correctly (according to hit counts from a Google Search). Both the blogger and the lawyer in this case have it wrong. More info is at http://www.who.int/vaccine_safety/topics/thiomersal/questions/en/ and http://www.who.int/vaccine_safety/topics/thiomersal/en/index.html. Also see http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=516680.

Thiomersal is one of those words that is more misspelled (as "thimerosal") than spelled correctly (according to hit counts from a Google Search). Both the blogger and the lawyer in this case have it wrong. More info is at http://www.who.int/vaccine_safety/topics/thiomersal/questions/en/ and http://www.who.int/vaccine_safety/topics/thiomersal/en/index.html. Also see http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=516680.

"though I haven't heard anything recently about power lines, I would not buy a house near high voltage lines."

Dude, 1995 called, they want their health scare back...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_line#Health_concerns

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/summary/285/5424/23b

http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs205/en/

Sorry, I screwed up, the numbers are wrong. My point still stands, however: In 2004, the US spent 15.4% of its GDP on healthcare.

In response to your opinion that universal healthcare would increase waiting times and limit your choice of doctors and hospitals: this is simply not what I've experienced here. I've never waited more than a few days for anything. I can freely choose from government-owned and private hospitals and I can freely choose my doctor.

All socialist politicians pushing variations of plans that have already been tried and failed in other places...

Uh, where are all these "socialist politicians" in the U.S.? Where are any elected officials advocating an economic system based on the exchange of labor, rather than the state-backed control of capital by an class of "owners"?

Proposing a few regulations or a few government services does not make one a socialist. The Palmer raids and McCarthyism did their jobs quite well, destroying the left in the U.S. so thoroughly during the early 20th century that we've been left with two right-wing parties and a population that is so maleducated that many Americans think that the notion that a government might protect and serve citizens by means other than an army and a police force is some sort of radical communist idea.

a medical system that is the envy of the world currently...All socialist politicians pushing variations of plans that have already been tried and failed in other places....

Our healthcare system - or lack thereof - is the laughingstock of the world. The World Health Organization ranks us 37th in health care system performance. Our infant mortality rate is scandalous, our life expectancy mediocre at best for an industrialized nation, our costs out of control as insurers rake in profits, and our large numbers without good access to health care leave us more vulnerable to the outbreak of an epidemic - natural or bioterrorist.

"Their obsession with conformity has also graced them with the highest suicide rate in the world."

Ahh... no. According to the WHO Suicide Rates (per 100,000), by country, year, and gender for the most recent year available.
As of May 2003. http://www.who.int/mental_health/prevention/suicide/suiciderates/en/
Or maybe you mean teen suicide?
Err... No again. As of 2004 seems Indian teen girls get that.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn4846-indian-teens-have-worlds-highest-suicide-rate.html

Now if you wanted a list that included attempted suicide as well, I don't have any information for that, but I would like to. I'd hate to think that Japan's traditionally high rating for suicide has been helped out by a culture that promotes meticulous attention to detail. Just a thought.

Japan is no paradise, but please try harder in your dismissing it that regurgitating memes for the Reagan era. Thank you.

Posts like this piss me off. First lets get some statistics right:

http://www.who.int/mental_health/prevention/suicide/suiciderates/en/

Japan does not have the highest suicide rate in the world. It doesn't even come close. According to this study, in 1999 the suicide rate was 50.6 per 100,000 people. This compares to 21.7 for the US and 15.1 in the UK. So it seems very high. However, compared to Austria (37.1), Beglium (40.1), Finland (45.5), etc it's not exactly running away wild. Countries with internal political strife have considerably higher levels (nearing 100 for some countries). So it's bad, but not ridiculously bad.

Now, let's take some other things into consideration. This data was taken in 1999 - 1 year after the collapse of several Japanese banks and the end of the "Job for life" policy in Japan. Yes, before 1998, nobody ever got laid off. Ever. In the history of the country. So in 1998 and 1999, people were getting laid off frequently. Hence suicide rates climbed dramatically.

Second you have to consider the culture. Unlike the US and the UK, suicide is *accepted* in Japanese society. Just the other day the father of one of my colleagues killed himself. His wife had died earlier and he just couldn't cope with looking after himself. Japanese men, in general, are totally dependent upon their wives. Many of them die by their own hand right after their wives die. This is sad, but normal here. In fact, I heard about my colleague's father at the morning staff meeting. No social stigma to the event at all.

So no matter what, suicide rates are going to be higher here than in the US or the UK. It's just seen as reasonable here that if you don't want to live, you don't have to (and personally I have a hard time coming up with a good argument against that).

Now to tackle the other things you have said. Life in Japan is *not* hard. It is *not* strict. It is *not* sad. This has got to be one of the happiest places I've ever lived in my life (and I've lived int the US, Canada and the UK). Yes, people work hard. The saying here is that "Otoko wa shigoto", or "Man is work". But they *like* to work. I do too. Hell, most of the people here on /. don't have 9-5 jobs. They care about their work life and believe in what they are doing. In fact, they often find it strange that western people don't like their job. I'm not saying that all people in Japan like their job. But my experience is that their devotion to it leads to a higher level of enjoyment than what I've seen in other places I've worked.

Also, Japanese life is *full* of play. Seriously, every single weekend there's a festival of something or other near by. And people grab their families and have a blast. In fact one of the most interesting things I found about living in Japan is that people take their children *everywhere*. And Japanese children by and large *extremely* happy. Again the culture is just different. School can be tough. But it doesn't have to be. You choose to work as hard as you want. You get rewarded for your efforts. Japanese schools are agressively streamed. So the functions of the schools (especially high school) is different depending on the composition of the students.

For instance, in the high school where I work, the level is fairly low (bottom 20% in the prefecture I think). So the focus in school is on how to make a positive contribution to society. Seriously. Some of the kids take their tests and whatever seriously, but most don't. You *can* get to University from here, but only about 25% do. The rest will become fishermen, policemen, firemen, housewives/husbands, shop keepers, etc. These students are taught that their role is valuable. That they can make Japan better simply by making someone's day a little nicer.

Japan is far from unhappy. I don't agree with everything that happens here. But I have to vehomently disagree with

The WHO also has bigger issues to worry about than the relatively minor health concerns of industrialized nations.

That said, http://www.who.int/inf-pr-1998/en/pr98-29.html

• "A survey of the 35 female and 42 gay sexual partners of circumcised and genitally intact men, and a separate survey of 53 circumcised and 30 genitally intact men themselves, indicated that circumcised men experienced significantly reduced sexual sensation along with associated long-lasting negative emotional consequences."; Adverse sexual and psychological effects of male infant circumcision. Boyle GJ, Bensley GA
• "We found no relationship between childhood circumcision age and overall sexual function; however some specific domains of sexual function (i.e. avoidance and communication) seemed to be affected by the age at circumcision procedure in this cohort of sexually active males. In addition, prevalence of sexual dysfunction was higher, with premature ejaculation being the most common dysfunction in the survey. We concluded that childhood circumcision age might affect some domains of male sexual function in adulthood, but not the overall function."; Effects of childhood circumcision age on adult male sexual functions. Aydur E et al.

Also, you say in a post further down:

• The psychological impact of circumcision; R. Goldman 1999
• Physical, sexual, and psychological effects of male infant circumcision: an exploratory survey; GA Bensley, GJ Boyle 2001

And finally, although circumcised men have lower risk for some infections and penile cancer, WHO states that "some of these conditions are rare while others are uncommon or treatable, and routine neonatal circumcision is not currently recommended on medical grounds". Promoting circumcision is being considered by the WHO as a way of reducing the risk of HIV infections in countries in a particularly dire state, like South Africa. But again, it only reduces the risk, and does not in any way replace the use of condoms. Also, studies are still ongoing on this.

So there. Was there anything unclear?

It's also proven to reduce the female-to-male and male-to-male transmission rate. Now I'm not saying that suddenly makes it right, or that condoms and sex-ed aren't a lot more helpful in reducing HIV transmission rates.. but check facts before going "oh, it's claimed that this is the case [but we all know better]"

Congratulations on failing to read my post or my link. Your link states that it was to "determine the impact of early childhood circumcision" which is *not* what was being discussed. By the way, The WHO disagrees with you, recommending:

1.1 Male circumcision should now be recognized as an efficacious intervention for HIV prevention.
1.2 Promoting male circumcision should be recognized as an additional, important strategy for the prevention of heterosexually acquired HIV infection in men.
2.1 Male circumcision should never replace other known methods of HIV prevention and should always be considered as part of a comprehensive HIV prevention package, which includes: promoting delay in the onset of sexual relations, abstinence from penetrative sex and reduction in the number of sexual partners; providing and promoting correct and consistent use of male and female condoms; providing HIV testing and counselling services; and providing services for the treatment of sexually transmitted infections.

Nobody is saying that circumcision now makes you safe. That is your strawman. What they are saying is that it reduces the risk and for that reason it should be used as a preventative measure in certain areas.

There may well be perfectly good reasons to hate inefficient services. However, the same thing can be done in many different ways. For example, see WHO/Europe Highlights on health, Finland 2004. In 2001, the total expenditure on health care in Finland was $1841 (purchasing power parity) per capita; in the US it was $4887. This includes both the private and public sectors. (Health expenditure trends in OECD countries, 1990-2001, p. 11; see also p. 4)

Existing vaccines have proven efficacy but also have a high incidence of adverse side-effects.

Through the success of the global eradication campaign, smallpox was finally pushed back to the horn of Africa and then to a single last natural case, which occurred in Somalia in 1977. A fatal laboratory-acquired case occurred in the United Kingdom in 1978. The global eradication of smallpox was certified, based on intense verification activities in countries, by a commission of eminent scientists in December 1979 and subsequently endorsed by the World Health Assembly in 1980.

That would actually not be a bad thing. At all.

The US health care system, right now, is almost criminally bad. If the US health care system performed as well as that of France, Japan or Australia, over 100000 American lives a year would be saved. Meanwhile, the USA already spends more on health care per capita than just about any other western country.

Hillary Clinton's plans for health care would in all likelihood save tens of thousands of lives, and be cheaper in the long run than the current system. The only thing that would disappear would be the possibility of choosing to be an idiot and not getting health insurance.

Yeah, the RIAA sucks. They're predatory. But they can't hold a candle to the tobacco industry.

Read this.

This is an industry that tries to hook people by marketing to children, adding adjuncts to tobacco so it's more addictive, and putting 4.9 million people per year in an early grave. By a painful death too - I got to watch my father die from cancer. It's horrific. And these people do it to millions every year.

For money.

And they're not the only ones. Big business has been dumping toxic waste next to day care centers, clear cutting rainforests, and blocking access to AIDS medications for a long time now.

You will never see the evil that human beings are capable of until you mix big money and big business. It's astonishing that these people are even the same species as the rest of us.

I guess that's why I'm not shocked and outraged about the RIAA. I won't get really surprised until they start shooting people in the head over a $15 cd. That'd be about par for the course, IMHO.

Anti-aging in its myriad forms (wrinkles, limp dicks, cellulose - although these are entirely normal phenomena re-packaged as "syndromes" in need of a cure); anti-obesity (new synthetic fats that will likely cause bowel cancer in exchange for slimmer consumers); etc; etc.

I'm not anti-science, just bewildered at the trends and drivers for growth (even on campus) that come from the pursuit for the research dollar.

OK - some further reading: Dengue Fever is crying for funds for clinical testing despite discovery of a breakthrough antiviral drug:
http://www.biospectrumasia.com/content/020307MYS3046.asp

This says alot re. the quandary of patent right in developing countries and the impact of R&D activity:
http://www.who.int/intellectualproperty/studies/stats/en/index.html

Accept according to the WHO, your information on DDT use is dead wrong.

Oh, you mean alarmist organizations like the WHO? My point stands, safety standards were enacted because of Silent Spring and we are better off for the standards. These are not just product labels, but safe use standard operating procedures (look at one yourself). Look, DDT largely was being applied incorrectly in the early 1900's. This shouldn't be surprising since the chemicals being used were developed during wartime and represented new technology. As anyone on Slashdot should know, standards usually lag behind new technology. Furthermore, no one "shut the door" on DDT use -- It IS currently being used to fight malaria (see above WHO document). In fact DDT has been used so frequently in countries like Africa there are populations of DDT-resistant mosquitoes (another justification for the development of genetically modified mosquitoes). And, for your information, I have slept under a bed net in Kenya and Tanzania and I have spent a year of my life fighting a mosquito-borne virus that at one point had me unconscious for an extended period of time. No one in my family has died from malaria but you point is mute because DDT is used (it was great while it lasted), its efficacy is failing, and an alternative is needed. Again, Silent Spring has improved pesticide safety and has nothing remotely in common with the outbreak of malaria and "death of millions".

"Hillarycare" would represent a right wing alternative to their existing health care system.

It may be right wing for parts of the world but it's left wing, ie socialist, in the US. And if you think health care is expensive wait until it's free.

Most advanced countries would have to reduce the scope of government involvement (including subtantial privitization) in their health care systems to match what Hillary has proposed.

That's not the Hillarycare I recall. She called for universal health care for everyone, which sounds socialistic "left wing" to me.

Since almost all of these countries have longer lifespans, lower infant mortality, etc. than the USA

Where do you get your data from? According to wiki life expectancy in the US is one of the highest. Out of 191 countries the USA is listed at 29. According to WHO in 2000 the US ranked 24th. While not as high as say Japan, the US has a higher life span than most nations.

Now don't get me wrong, I believe everyone should have access to health care but I believe it's the individual's responsibility. The way the system is rigged in the US is part of the problem with people not being able to afford health insurance. For one thing, because of wage control laws in the US during WWII employers weren't able to offer prospective employees more pay however they were allowed to offer health insurance to employees. Today if employers were allowed to pay employees more without either the employer or employees having to pay more taxes people would be able to buy their own health insurance. This would create more competition in insurance which would lower insurance premiums. In a way Ron Paul's health policy would address this, though not compleatly. Or take Taxol. The National Cancer Institute (NCI), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and therefore part of government, spent $183 million to develop and test Taxol as a treatment for certain cancers. After spending all that taxpayer money what did the NCI do? It sold the rights to all of the data needed by the FDA to win drug approval to Bristol-Myers Squibb, BMS, for $43 million, $140 million less than taxpayers paid. And how much does a Taxol course of treatment cost? Several thousand dollars. Yet it cost less than a dollar for BMS to make one dose, and one treatment course takes less than 1000 doses. If the NCI had allowed any pharmaceutical company to use the data to get FDA approval, even if the manufacturers were required to pay say a 10% royalty to the NCI which would allow the NCI to do more research, the cost for treatment with Taxol would be a lot lower.

And "it takes a village" would represent common sense consensus among most societies (apart from the US). Someone who proposed the common US view of "I'm looking out for number one everyone else can go die for all I care" would be thought a dangerous sociopath.

Again I think you may be misunderstanding me, then again I wasn't really clear about it. I do believe in people working together in communities to help each other, voluntarily. What I don't like is anyone being mandated or required to do so, such as by having some of the money they work to earn being taken out to pay taxes. As an example of how I'd prefer it is the old Barn Raising wh

...like making false claims perhaps? The United States only has "the best health care outcomes" if you can afford it, and the vast majority of us cannot so we get whatever we can afford or if we're one of the fortunate ones with insurance we get whatever insurance will cover. HMOs are designed to make money so cross your fingers if you need a costly procedure because they may very well drop your coverage.

U.S. healthcare system ranked #37th http://www.photius.com/rankings/healthranks.html
24th in life expectancy http://www.who.int/inf-pr-2000/en/pr2000-life.html
37th in infant mortality http://www.geographyiq.com/ranking/ranking_Infant_Mortality_Rate_aall.htm

etc. etc. etc.

FWIW, that's bullshit. The WHO's numbers (better presentation at Wikipedia) put it at 9th, and even were it at its recorded peak in the past 50 years it wouldn't break into the current top 7.

Japan has a relatively high suicide rate, absolutely, but they're not even in contention for the top spot.

The article was interesting until Gwyneth claimed that only 69 people died from Chernobyl

So much as the arm growing out of your forehead.

Seriously - liars can figure - and these liars are out to sell you "limited nuclear war" and "cheap nuclear power". File this with "cakewalk in Iraq".

Look what the radiation and chemical toxicity effects are from even "depleted" Uranium:
http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs257/en/

Remember: Uranium is named for Uranus - don't play with stuff that comes out of Uranus!

You are one hundred percent correct. We should NOT be contributing our precious *cough*unused*cough* CPU cycles to evil, money grubbing governmental institutions purely so they can further get better profits. No cure for a disease which causes 13% of all deaths is worth that, not unless I see some money for using my precious CPU cycles!

Enzymes, being proteins, aren't normally absorbed by the body. (Which is why insulin, for example, can't be taken in tablet form.) Also, these enzymes aren't supposed to be floating around in the blood (which is where they'd be if they were absorbed) - Liver function tests measure the presence of these enzymes in the blood, since they show that liver cells have been damaged/lysed, releasing their contents.

Vitamin A deficiency is still a big problem in developing countries, though, and liver is definitely the best source of it. Of course, too much of a good thing can also be a problem.

Critics fear that the poorest countries need food, malaria protection and clean water far more than computers.

'Cause there's no way that you could possibly use one of these things to learn about sustainable agriculture, malaria prevention, or safe drinking water, right?

The fact that the WHO decided those criteria are indicators of good health care does not make it any more objective. Statistics on mortality rates are next to worthless when comparing highly industrialized nations (eg, US, UK, Australia, etc). Statistics on equity has nothing to do with the quality of a healthcare system (in fact, this 1999 WHO paper clearly has equity and quality as two orthogonal characteristics, and the US as 15th best, on the same statistical plane as most of Europe). On this report, they have the US dominating in really the most important category (and the only important characteristic in quality), which is effective care. There was another recent chart a few months ago which I can't locate that had the US on the second tier (with about five tiers), but the US health care system's worst marks came in equity, which has nothing to do with quality.

The WHO is ranking apples vs. oranges. They put the US at 37, so what? It's pretty much meaningless.

First of all, there is no objective statistic [realclearpolitics.com] that indicates that the US is behind on medical care. All of the "statistics" are based on certain very subjective assumptions that automatically penalize capitalist systems.

Look, I'm not going to trade bullshit partisan links with you. The WHO knows what they're doing. They deal with this shit "on the ground". I know people who work closely with them, and I trust their opinion a _whole_ lot more than those of some pundits on the internet. The US sucks on _objective_, unarguable measurements. The WHO has a giant database of core health indicators for countries around the world. Highlight the United States, and the UK on the first list, then click the "Mortality" checkbox to the right-side of the second list. Compare the core health statistics.

The US wins a few against the UK (deaths due to TB, deaths due to HIV, mortality rate for cancer, years of life lost to diseases), but we lose most of the big ones. Our overall and healthy life expectancy is lower. Our probability of dying between 15-60 is much higher, for both males and females. Our probability of dying under age 5 is higher. Our infant mortality, neonatal mortality, and maternal mortality are all higher (our infant mortality is actually close to last among developed nations). Our injury statistics are much worse.

This is just the UK, by the way, which ranked 18th in the WHO rankings, compared to our 37th. It is also a country whose per-capita GDP is about 30% lower than ours, and whose per-capita expenditures on health care are far lower than ours.

Look, these are the kinds of statistics that matter to people who work in public health. It's the sort of numbers we use to decide which 3rd-world nation to give foreign aid to. It's fairly unpoliticized, and as close as you're going to get to objectivity in this particular debate. And these statistics show that we're quite a ways behind a much less wealthy country, and we spend more money to achieve that state of affairs...

That said, it is certainly the case that the US health care system could use some fixing, but the solution is to take the government out of it, not add more government. We could drastically reduce health care costs by limiting frivolous lawsuits and government red tape. That way, more people could have health care and it would be better to boot.

And will there be fairies and unicorns and magical bunnies too?

During past pandemics, attack rates reached 25-35% of the total population. Under the best circumstances, assuming that the new virus causes mild disease, the world could still experience an estimated 2 million to 7.4 million deaths (projected from data obtained during the 1957 pandemic). Projections for a more virulent virus are much higher. The 1918 pandemic, which was exceptional, killed at least 40 million people. In the USA, the mortality rate during that pandemic was around 2.5%.

Think about it.

Those civilized Japanese have more than twice the suicide rate of US and most "civilized" european countries like switzerland are also high. That too, with abundant guns we have here that should tempt people with a promise of quick, reliable death and no need for advance planning.

In the same countries, people are not motivated to have enough children for stable population. It appears that Japanese are as discontent with life as we are, but instead of venting the anger out they turn it on themselves and also do not wish to bring children into such a miserable world. It would be better if those polite Japanese businessman had a good fist-fight among themselves and then went home to fuck their wives. After all, a black eye is usually not fatal and public displays of dissatisfaction would eventually boil into a revolution or otherwise force the society to change.

If someone is contemplating the choices of a) stealing by bag of CDs and b) killing himself, by all means take my CDs. I don't want a death on my continuousness. If the choice are a) use my unsecured wireless access point or b) kill himself, the choice becomes a lot easier.

> As I claimed in my post, female circumcision generally refers to
> the removal of the hood. As I claimed, that is absolutely analogous
> to removal of the foreskin.

Not according to the WHO:

"Female genital mutilation (FGM), often referred to as 'female circumcision', comprises all procedures involving partial or total removal of the external female genitalia or other injury to the female genital organs whether for cultural, religious or other non-therapeutic reasons."

http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs241/en /

(I'd not recommend reading all of that, it's sickening).

Top google results return the same thing.

Also from Oxford university, which carries similar definitions to the WHO:

http://www.medsci.ox.ac.uk/gazette/previousissues/ 54vol1/Part2

> I understand that the original post referred to "genital mutilation"
> which also includes the kinds of things you are talking about. But
> if you even glanced at my post it should be clear what I am talking
> about and that I am not equating it to complete removal of the clitoris.

As I posted above, if the WHO says they're synonyms then it's a futile arguing anything different.

> Also it should be perfectly clear I'm against any such practices.
> If an adult decides to go out and get himself circumcised, that's
> all good. If someone else does it to him (even if it's when he's a child)
> that's not good at all.

Good, and I pretty much agree with that.

"The most common type of female genital mutilation is excision of the clitoris and the labia minora, accounting for up to 80% of all cases"

http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs241/en /

>"The worst side effect to male circumcision is that..." the surgery goes bad and you lose your penis.

The worst that could happen to you would be to bleed to death as the results of the surgery. However, that's as uncommon as loosing a penis to male circumcision.

In practical terms, male circumcision is both safe "risk in a competently performed medical circumcision is very low" (http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/reprint /105/1/S2/246) there are also some pretty major benefits according to recent research (http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/statements/20 07/s04/en/index.html).

> Frankly, sir, you're an idiot.

SURE.

Alcohol and cigarettes are relatively safe -- you see smokers and drinkers who are in their 80s.

The World Health Organization would like a word with your pastor outside.

Fine. Instead of infant mortality, look at the adult mortality rate. If you pull up the WHO statistics, which are calculated in such a way as to be directly comparable between countries, you'll find that the U.S's adult mortality rate is still significantly higher than, say, the UK's, or France's, or Canada's, or Germany's... and as for life expectancy, they also offer a calculation of the so-called "Healthy life expectancy", and the trend is the same.

Here, I'll even give you the link: http://www.who.int/whosis/whostat2007/en/index.htm l

We can make all the excuses we want, but when you look at the numbers, they speak for themselves.

I have been doing a lot of reading up on health care statistics lately, and I recognize most of those mentioned in the above post. The most astonishing fact I've stumbled upon is that the U.S. *government* spends more on health care per capita than most other nations (including Canada). Then, you add on that the States also spend more (much much more) per person than other nations on private funding, and you can understand why the system costs more.

I think the whole "public healthcare raises taxes" argument is lost right there -- if the States had a system anywhere close to the efficiency of other industrialized nations', they could theoretically be spending just as much at the government level and chuck most of the private health costs. Of course, that's probably unrealistic in that it would likely be politically difficult to build a system like that out of the one in place now.

Anyway, since I can't recall all of the sources of the statistics I've read, I did a bit of googling for you. Right off the top, the OECD (http://www.oecd.org/) is an excellent source that often pops up in such discussions. They have an entire section on Health statistics of member nations.

And here's spending info courtesy of the WHO: http://www.who.int/whosis/database/core/core_selec t_process.cfm?countries=all&indicators=nha
This includes per capita government spending on health care, which happens to show that Canadian governement spending (for example) is less than U.S. Government spending, per capita.

And a bit of a comparison of average life expectency and spending on health care (note the disparity when it comes to the U.S.): http://ucatlas.ucsc.edu/spend.php.

Anyway, what tends to bother me the most about these debates on Slashdot is that it often comes down to people with data to back them up versus people who blindly believe that the American system MUST cost less. I mean, it isn't government-run, right?

That position is undeniably false, and I really wish we could at least get past that part of the debate so that something meaningful can come from these discussions. Of course, faith in the free market, just like any other faith, doesn't require facts to be believed.

DDT has never been banned for fighting the malaria disease vector. According to the Stockholm convention on POPs, DDT is banned for all purposes except for fighting malaria vector.
See http://www.who.int/malaria/docs/10thingsonDDT.pdf/

Regarding the first two paragraphs - you state:
"The cost of Global Warming is still going to be in the trillions"

And your argument?
"because people generally already accounted for this"

Interesting argument.

As for malaria spreading north .. well, if you're talking about Southern Africa, then you should know that the spread of malaria there has virtually nothing to do with climate change. It is due to DDT not being used during the past 30 years. Prior to this, malaria had been fought quite successfully in Southern Africa using DDT. Even WHO has had to start to backtrack on their previously extreme message on DDT (for example, see this press release from WHO: http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2006/ pr50/en/index.html ). It took a few million lives for the WHO to finally admit that they were wrong.. If the ban on DDT is removed - then you will see a massive drop (down to levels previously seen prior to the DDT ban) of malariadeaths.

Remember the SARS outbreak? About five people in Asia died from it and it was reported as a 'worldwide pandemic.'

Your other examples are better; The World Health Organization disagrees with your death count, and I heard it more described as a potential pandemic. I don't think you seem to grasp the full threat from the multi-century periodic epidemic outbreaks. They are the single greatest natural threat to humanity's precarious dominance on this planet. And as someone who heard first hand horror stories about the 1918 Flu from one of my great aunts, pandemics are no laughing matter; she went to Camp Devens to watch her older brother die, because the army doctors were overwhelmed and helpless. She didn't tell the stories often, and never before I turned twelve, but she felt it was an important part of the family history to pass on. Even so, I got the sense she was leaving worse horrors out.

Yes, SARS turned out to be a dud, and the media over-hyped the disaster... but if anything, they understated the possible danger. If SARS had been only a bit more effective at airborne transmission, it could easily have dropped the planet's population by a couple percent; if it had also been one of the rare more-deadly-than-not viruses, North Korea might have been in a good position to conquer China today.

The average person *can't* be trusted to take all their antibiotics,

so the problem continues because the path of least resistance (and most profit) for doctors is to succumb to the demands of their patients.

The inevitable long-term result is that antibiotics will no longer work and the death rate from bacterial infections will gradually return to the rate at which it naturally stood for thousands of years before antibiotics were discovered.

... because any lazy bastard can go and check websites like WHO's, he is actually complementing you because he thinks you are capable of doing this yourself.

SInce you celarly aren't, here it is some information for you:

Just for starters:

                                                                      Cuba US
Life expectancy at birth (m/f) 75/80 75/80
Healthy life expectancy(m/f) 67.1/69.5 67.2/71.3
Child mortality (m/f)/1000 8/7 8/7

and so on.

Here:

http://www.who.int/countries/cub/en/
http://www.who.int/countries/usa/en/

Happy now?

Cuba is no paradise (the US and Fidel Castro have made sure of that) but to deny that Cuba's healthcare system is not what it is painted to be is to go against most of informed opinion and objectively collected data.

... because any lazy bastard can go and check websites like WHO's, he is actually complementing you because he thinks you are capable of doing this yourself.

SInce you celarly aren't, here it is some information for you:

Just for starters:

                                                                      Cuba US
Life expectancy at birth (m/f) 75/80 75/80
Healthy life expectancy(m/f) 67.1/69.5 67.2/71.3
Child mortality (m/f)/1000 8/7 8/7

and so on.

Here:

http://www.who.int/countries/cub/en/
http://www.who.int/countries/usa/en/

Happy now?

Cuba is no paradise (the US and Fidel Castro have made sure of that) but to deny that Cuba's healthcare system is not what it is painted to be is to go against most of informed opinion and objectively collected data.

http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs113/en /

Theories and facts are two different things. 'Till the jury decides, I'll call foul to any claiming victory.

Strong evidence collected over the past decade supports the prion theory, but the ability of the BSE agent to form multiple strains is more easily explained by a virus-like agent.