From: jnr@igc.apc.org (Jim Rosenfield)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.african
Subject: Re: 10/07 Wire stories on hunger
Date: 8 Oct 92 00:22:00 GMT
Nf-ID: #R:cdp:1471700165:cdp:1471700171:000:3069
Nf-From: cdp.UUCP!jnr    Oct  7 17:22:00 1992


/* Written  5:19 pm  Oct  7, 1992 by jnr in cdp:hunger.general */
APn  10/06 0650  Child Health

Copyright, 1992. The Associated Press. All rights reserved. 


NEW YORK (AP) -- American children's lives are imperiled by
health threats from a growing lack of physical fitness to a
potential explosion in AIDS cases and child murders, health
experts say. 

Children are fatter, weaker, more prone to diseases and more
likely than in the mid-1980s to die from murder or AIDS,
according to a study released Monday. 

"With the state of health care today for children, you're sitting
on a powder keg," said Dr. Robert J. Ruben, a childhood disease
specialist at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York. 

The American Health Foundation report card gave an overall
C-minus rating to the state of U.S. children's health, citing
increases in measles and other childhood diseases and a trend
toward obesity at a younger age. 

"Our children are fatter, slower and weaker," said Dr. Nicholas
DiNubile, a special adviser to the President's Council on
Physical Fitness. 

DiNubile said studies show half of girls and 25 percent of boys
cannot do one pullup, and 40 percent of children ages 5 to 8 have
at least one coronary disease risk factor. 

The report also noted the rates of AIDS cases and murders of
children have skyrocketed since 1985. 

The non-profit research and education group gave higher grades --
but no A's -- for declines in dental problems and smoking. 

Ruben and other participants in a symposium where the report was
presented blamed the worsening health levels on rising poverty,
less active children and lack of extensive school-based health
programs. 

Their report, based on statistics from the Centers for Disease
Control and other sources, said rates for some major childhood
diseases dipped in the mid-1980s but have since risen. 

Measles cases fell from 13,500 cases in 1980 to 2,822 cases in
1985, but jumped to 9,411 cases last year, the report said. Mumps
and rubella showed similar patterns, it said. 

The report said black babies were twice as likely to die as white
newborns. It said fewer than half of urban children have been
vaccinated against measles, mumps, rubella, diphtheria, whooping
cough, tetanus and polio by age 2. 

Infant mortality also has increased since the mid-1980s. The
report showed 9.1 of every 1,000 American babies died in infancy
in 1990, up from eight per 1,000 births in 1984 but less than the
12.5 deaths per 1,000 births in 1980, the report said. 

Acquired immune deficiency syndrome cases in children under 13
years old jumped nearly sixfold, from 133 in 1985 to 782 in 1990,
the report said. It said the murder rate for youths ages 10 to 19
more than doubled from 1984 to 1989, from 1,350 to 2,771. 

However, drug and alcohol use appeared to be declining. The
report said the percentage of high school students who used
cocaine in the past 12 months dropped from 13 percent in 1985 to
3.5 percent last year. Marijuana use fell from 41 percent to 24
percent during the same period, the report said.