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Show Weekly Special lytcroa High infant mortality is still a national disgrace Washington This week, Christians all over the world will celebrate the birth of a babe in a manger 2,000 years ago in Bethlehem. In a country as wealthy as the United States, it seems impossible that for many babies, there is still no room at the inn. But the sad fact is that infant mortality is shockingly high in this country, despite the superior health care facilities available to most Americans. In one area of Detroit, for example, 33 of every 1,000 newborn babies die an infant mortality rate as high as some of the world's most backward countries. How is this possible? Experts who have studied the problem believe that poverty, ignorance and neglect are the main causes of infant deaths. Poor prenatal care leads to sickly babies who are more susceptible to such killer diseases as pneumonia. In the months after birth, babies are still endangered by three insidious killers: poverty, ignorance and neglect. ne-glect. A minister in Detroit, for example, told our reporter Stephanie Holmes that he performed a funeral for a newborn child who, he believed, had slowly starved to death. He was told by parishioners that the mother couldn't afford the proper amount of infant formula, and he suspected that she diluted it with water. There is one sector of U.S. society where poverty doesn't bring high infant mortality rates: on Indian reservations. Former Interior Secretary Secre-tary James Watt sneered at Indian reservations as examples of the failure of socialism. But the truth is that babies born on reservations have a better chance of survival than those born in urban and rural slums. The probable reason: government relief programs. , We have a suggestion. Dig a little deeper this Christmas and give a present to a child who doesn't have as much as your children do. It will make that child's holiday happier and yours, too. Draft women?: Pentagon officials are kicking around a secret plan that could be political dynamite in an election year. They want to draft women into the armed services. The women would not be conscripted to fight but to care for those wounded in an armed conflict Except for doctors, the health care field is staffed largely by women. Ninety-eight percent of the nation's nurses, for example, are women. So the Defense Department's Bureau of Health Care is quietly pushing a mobilization package that would include drafting women health workers not just nurses, but laboratory labora-tory technicians and doctors as well. They would be called up only if the president and Congress declared a national emergency. In all, Pentagon officials have designated 98 separate health occupations occupa-tions they want to draw from in the event of war. They foresee calling up 23,000 nurses alone under the mobilization mobiliza-tion plan. The Pentagon's proposal is still in the drafting stage, but it has already drawn criticism from women's groups. The opposition comes from both women's rights groups and those who don't usually go along with the activist organizations. This probably means that the plan is unlikely to get very far in an election year. No political candidate would deliberately outrage a majority of the voters. So even if the mobilization plan somehow wins White House approval, it will die a quick death in Congress. More bad publicity?: The Johnson & t Johnson pharmaceutical company is recovering from the damage caused by -a few poisoned bottles of Tylenol, but there is more bad news in store for the firm. A prescription painkiller called Zomax has been linked to several deaths and hundreds of severe allergic reactions. Johnson & Johnson took the product off the market voluntarily last spring. We've seen a congressional report that blasts both Johnson & Johnson and the federal Food and Drug Administration Administra-tion for ignoring evidence of Zomax's potential danger. The FDA's own files show that individuals with no prior history of bad reactions to painkillers could be stricken suddenly. Aiding the enemy: Syrian troops shooting at U.S. Marines in Lebanon may have an advantage thanks, in part, to American business. According to our sources, the Commerce Department Depart-ment has approved shipments worth more than $10 million of the chemical Kevlar to Syria. The material, shipped by way of West Germany, is used in the manufacture of bulletproof vests. The Commerce Department has been alerted and is on the lookout for future exports of Kevlar. Diplomatic and legal steps have also been taken to persuade West German firms from making further shipments to Syria Future file: Look for the Reagan administration to attempt an improvement improve-ment in relations with Poland. Among the initiatives will be a renegotiation of loans to forestall economic disaster. The U.S. Customs Service will soon begin a crackdown on illegally imported steel. 1983 United Feature Syndicate, Inc. |
