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Lifespan crisis hits the Supersized US
By Robin McKie
Sept. 19— Bloated, blue-collar US citizens — gorged
on diets of fries and burgers, but denied their share of US riches —
are bringing the nation’s steady rise in life expectancy to a grinding
halt.
Twenty years ago, the US, the richest nation on the planet, led the
world’s longevity league. Today, US women rank only 19th, while
males can manage only 28th place, alongside men from Brunei.
These startling figures are blamed by researchers on two key factors:
obesity, and inequality of health care. A man born in a poor area of
Washington can have a life expectancy that is 40 years less than a woman
in a prosperous neighborhood only a few blocks away, for example.
“A look at the Americans’ health reveals astonishing inequalities
in our society,” states Professor Lawrence Jacobs of Minnesota
University and Professor James Morone, of Brown University, Rhode Island,
in the journal American Prospect.
Their paper is one of a recent swathe of studies that have uncovered
a shocking truth: The US, once the home of the world’s best-fed,
longest-lived people, is now a divided nation made up of a rich elite
and a large underclass of poor, ill-fed, often obese, men and women
who are dying early.
In another newly published paper, statisticians at Boston College reveal
that in France, Japan and Switzerland, men and women aged 65 now live
several years longer than they do in the US. Indeed, the US only just
scrapes above Mexico and most East European nations.
This decline is astonishing given the wealth in the US. Not only is
it Earth’s richest nation, it devotes more gross domestic product
— 13 percent — to health care than any other developed nation.
Switzerland comes next with 10 percent; Britain spends 7 percent. As
the Boston group — Alicia Munnell, Robert Hatch and James Lee —
point out: “The richer a country is, the more resources it can
dedicate to education, medical and other goods and services associated
with great longevity.” The result in every other developed country
has been an unbroken rise in life expectancy since 1960.
But this formula no longer applies to the US, where life expectancy’s
rise has slowed but not yet stopped, because resources are now so unevenly
distributed. When the Boston College group compared men and women in
America’s top 10 percent wage bracket with those in the bottom
10 per cent, they found the former group earned 17 times more than the
latter. In Japan, Switzerland and Norway, this ratio is only five-to-one.
Jacobs and Morone state: “Check-ups, screenings and vaccinations
save lives, improve well-being, and are shockingly uneven [in the US].
Well-insured people get assigned hospital beds; the uninsured get patched
up and sent back to the streets.” For poor people in the US, health
service provision is little better than that in third world nations.
“People die younger in Harlem than in Bangladesh,” report
Jacobs and Morone.
Consumption of alcohol, tobacco and food can also have a huge impact
on life expectancy. The first two factors are not involved with the
longevity crisis in the US. Smoking and drinking are modest compared
with Europe. Food consumption is a different matter, however, for the
US has experienced an explosion in obesity rates in the past 20 years.
As a result, 34 percent of all women in the US are obese compared with
4 percent in Japan. For men, the figures are 28 and 2 percent respectively.
“US obesity rates jumped in the 1980s and 1990s, and the vast majority
of the population affected by obesity had not yet reached age 65 by
2000,” state the Boston group. “As the large baby boom cohort
begins to turn 65 in coming years, a stronger connection between obesity
rates and life expectancy may emerge.”
In other words, as the nation’s middle-aged overweight people reach
retirement age, more and more will start to die out. Life expectancy
in the US could then actually go into decline.
Source: Observer (UK)
Two charged with eavesdropping
after videotaping traffic stops
By Liz Allen
Asheville, North Carolina, Sept. 21 (AGR) — In Champaign
County, Illinois, Martel Miller and Patrick Thompson have been arrested
and charged with eavesdropping after recording traffic stops conducted
by Champaign County police officers. The eavesdropping statute in Illinois
outlaws making an audio recording of an individual without their knowledge.
Because the case involves police the charges are felonies and carry
sentences of up to fifteen years. Currently, Thompson is being held
in the Champaign County jail on other charges. The two have a pre-trial
dates set for the end of October.
The two men were filming for a documentary for the Citizen Watch program,
a branch of the organization Visionaries Educating Youth and Adults
(VEYA). According to www.veya.org, VEYA “is a nonprofit, community
based organization dedicated to providing education for the prevention
of the incarceration at-risk youth, and to reduce the recidivism rate
of incarcerated adults” and the Citizen’s Watch program is
“dedicated to the elimination of potential police abuses through
civilian observation.” The documentary, featuring footage of the
traffic stops, is aimed at increasing accountability, but is not anti-police.
The documentary was set to air Aug. 24, 2004 on Urbana Public Television
(UPTV), but prior to airing, the tape was turned over by staff to police.
UPTV were unable to be reached prior to press time.
“To me it seems like when we’re [black people] stopped it
seems more like an investigation than a regular stop,” Miller explained.
“I feel that if we were taping them and they were doing right,
they should not have a problem. Then, we would be proving a point to
them that they are good officers.”
Champaign City Attorney David Stevens reacted to accusations that city
government treats black communities differently than white communities
in Champaign, by saying, “The most important perception is their
perception. The police department is making efforts to make connections
with the community and community leaders to build a relationship of
trust.”
In April VEYA sent letters informing the Champaign mayor, city manager
and chief of police informing them of their intentions. Stevens said
they were not previously aware VEYA members were planning to videotape
traffic stops because the letters only said “they were going to
be observing us.”
Stevens said the decision to prosecute the case was made by the state
attorney, John Pilard, who received information about the case based
on a report sent in by the Champaign police department. Pilard was unable
to be reached prior to press time.
Miller’s lawyer Bruce Ratcliffee has filed a motion to dismiss
the charges on the grounds that they violate the First Amendment of
the constitution. On Sept. 10 the ACLU of Illinois released a statement
in support of “the right of an individual or organization to videotape
government activity in a public place, including police detentions of
civilians.” In a phone interview Adam Schwartz of the Illinois
ACLU said across the country people are video-tapping police work, participating
in a “legitimate and important way of insuring police accountability.”
The charges carrying a sentence of up to 15 years is “grossly disproportionate
to the offense, which really isn’t an offense,” he said.
Another civil rights concern is that the law is being selectively enforced
and is not used to prosecute individuals videotapping events -- such
as weddings or football games -- which include audio recorded without
the permission of the individual. Schwartz called the choice to prosecute
Miller a “disturbing and disproportionate” application of
the law.
In an interviewby Mediageek with Miller, which aired on the east Illinois
community radio station WEFT 90.1 on Aug. 27, Miller explained that
on Aug. 7 he was across the street filming the interaction between a
Champaign police officer and a young black man who was stopped for not
having a light on his bicycle. After the stop was complete, Miller asked
the man for an interview. Miller reported that in the middle of videotaping
the interview the officer plus two other police cars pulled up.
“I told the officer I was videotaping and if he didn’t want
to be videotaped then don’t say anything,” Miller said. He
also told the officer to call his superior, which was done. After the
supervisor showed up, the camera and the tape were confiscated. Miller
said he had been in contact previously with the supervising officer
and felt as though he was on amicable terms with the police department
and they certainly knew about his activities. On Sept. 3 a grand jury
indicted Miller.
Another concern to many is the issue of the law being used to stifle
the work of journalists, because the way the law is being applied in
this case can technically be used against any news crew.
Swartz criticized UPTV’s decision not to show the documentary saying,
“we believe the footage in the documentary is an important part
of a national conversation on government accountability” and felt
that the UPTV was “not justified in its decision.”
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