From: harelb@math.cornell.edu (misc.activism.progressive co-moderator)
Subject: The Decline of America: "We're Number One"
Followup-To: alt.activism.d
Originator: daemon@pencil.cs.missouri.edu
Organization: misc.activism.progressive on UseNet ; ACTIV-L@UMCVMB
Date: Sun, 11 Oct 1992 15:59:43 GMT

The Decline of America: "We're Number One"


                         =================== 
                         A I D S   C A S E S 
                         =================== 

================================================================ 
COUNTRY                 TOTAL CASES             CUMULATIVE RATE 
                                                  PER 100,000 
================================================================ 
U.S. NONWHITE            **93,569**                   **155.7** 
Malawi                     12,074                       131.8 
Uganda                     21,719                       120.9 
Congo                       2,405                       107.3 
 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 
UNITED STATES           **202,843**                    **81.0** 
Switzerland                 1,891                        28.0 
France                     15,534                        27.6 
Spain                       9,112                        23.2 
 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 
Canada                      5,228                        19.7 
Australia                   2,678                        15.8 
Italy                       9,792                        17.0 
Denmark                       842                        16.4 
Netherlands                 1,799                        12.0 
 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 
Belgium                       896                         9.0 
Germany (unified)           6,708                         8.5 
New Zealand                   274                         8.3 
United Kingdom              4,758                         8.3 
Austria                       594                         7.8 
 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 
Sweden                        587                         6.9 
Ireland                       205                         5.9 
Norway                        220                         5.2 
Findland                       88                         1.8 
Japan                         405                         0.3 
 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

"Sources: World Health Organization, Global Programme on AIDS (October, 
1991); U.S. figures: UI.S. Centers for Diseas Control "HIV/AIDS 
Surveillance," December, 1991, p. 9. 

****************************************************************** 

"The United States has had nearly ten times as many reported AIDS cases 
as Uganda, the nation with the second most cases, and the cumulative 
rate of AIDS is higher in the United states than in any developed 
nation. In per capita terms, we have experienced 3 times as many AIDS 
cases as Switzerland, 10 times as many as the United Kingdom, and 270 
times as many as Japan. While three developing African countries -- 
Uganda, Malawi, and the Congo -- have a higher cumulative AIDS rate 
than the general American population, AIDS has been more prevalent in 
the nonwhite U.S. population than [even] in these three African 
nations. 

"Though attempts are made to accurately update the number of officially 
reported AIDS cases, the World Health Organization acknowledges 
widespread underreporting. THerefore, while the official world count 
as of October 1991 was 418,403 cases since the disease first appeared, 
the cumulative number of AIDS cases is probably closer to 900,000 for 
adults and 400,000 for infants and children [54] 

"The first decade of AIDS that ended in 1991 was just the beginning. 
Millions of people throughout the world, including at least one 
million Americans, are infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. 
By the year 2000, the World Health Organization predicts that forty 
million people worldwide will be infected with HIV [55]. [a study 
which will be posted with these files recently criticized this (huge) 
figure as possibly under-estimating by a factor of more than two]. 
Unless some miracle cure is found, these forty million people will die 
of AIDS.  More than 130,000 Americans have died already. By the end 
of 1993, as many as 480,000 Americans will have developed AIDS and as 
many as 340,000 will have died from it, according to the Centers for 
Disease Control[56]. 

"Until recently, many HIV-positive individuals in the Unites States 
were not classified as having AIDS simply because the definition of 
the disease was outdated. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control, after 
criticism from medical groups and AIDS activists, revised its 
definition of AIDS so that these HIV-positive Americans, many of whom 
are women, now receive disability benefits for which they were not 
eligible before. Though the U.S. share of all reported AIDS cases is 
falling, it still amounts to about half of the known cases, despite 
the fact that Americans make up about 5 percent of the world's 
population. 

****************************************************************** 

[54] Still, the figures presented in the chart below provide an 
accurate *comparative* picture of AIDS prevalence in different nations 
since the inception of the disease 

[55] Gina Kolata, "10 Years of AIDS Battle: Hopes for Success Dim," 
The New York Times, June 3, 1991, p. A14 

[56] Centers for Disease Control, personal communication. 

[57] Figures are through October 1, 1991, for all counties except the 
U.S., where figures are current through November 1991. Note: AIDS 
annual figures are updates by WHO retroactively, so 1991 figures are 
provisional. 

******************************************************************

From: 
 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -  
_We're Number One, Where America Stands -- and Falls -- in the New    
World Order_ by Andrew L Shapiro.   

New York, May 1992, Vintage Books, a division of Random House.   
$10 paperback. ISBN 0-679-73893-2  
 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -   

    "America is becoming a land of private greed and public squalor.   
    This book is an indispensable road map through the wreckage. The   
    facts it reveals will startle you. They may depress you. But   
    ideally they'll fire you up to help rebuild this nation."   

                        -Robert B. Reich, author of The Work of Nations   

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