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The COVID-19 pandemic contributed to the higher rate in 2020 and 2021:
An increasing number of U.S. women are dying during pregnancy or soon after giving birth, according to the latest data on the maternal mortality rate.
In 2021, there were 32.9 deaths per 100,000 live births, compared with 23.8 per 100,000 in 2020 and 20.1 in 2019, the National Center for Health Statistics reports March 16. The U.S. rate greatly exceeds those of other high-income countries. The total number of U.S. maternal deaths rose from 861 in 2020 to 1,205 in 2021.
There remains a wide disparity in the maternal mortality rate for Black women, at 69.9 deaths per 100,000 live births, compared with white women, at 26.6 per 100,000. Many social determinants of health underlie this gap, including differences in the quality of care that Black women receive before, during and after pregnancy.
The NCHS report doesn't discuss the reasons behind the increase for 2021. But COVID-19 contributed to a quarter of maternal deaths in 2020 and 2021, the U.S. Government Accountability Office reported in October. The pandemic also contributed to the mortality disparity between Black and white women, the GAO found, worsening existing structural inequities that lead to such issues as barriers to getting health care (SN: 4/10/20).
The U.S. maternal mortality rate has risen overall since 2018. The highest rate is among non-Hispanic Black women compared with Hispanic women and non-Hispanic white women.
The maternal deaths captured by the NCHS report are those that occur during pregnancy or within 42 days of the end of the pregnancy, "from any cause related to or aggravated by the pregnancy or its management." These causes include hemorrhaging, infections and high blood pressure disorders such as eclampsia.
The report excludes deaths after 42 days and up to the first year after birth. But 30 percent of pregnancy-related deaths occur during this period, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported in September, from an analysis of the years 2017 to 2019.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday March 20 2023, @07:16PM (7 children)
>Why aren't my fellow Americans as ashamed of what my country has become since Reagan imported all that coke as I am?
Wasn't that Ollie North? I'm sorry, I can't remember...
And I'd call the coke a side effect of the underlying problem: putting psychopaths in charge because they can get higher profits.
I feel like post WWII U.S. society took a step toward providing a decent life "for those boys who risked their lives in service of our country." And, I agree, once Carter lost in 1980, it's been on greased skids to income inequality hell ever since.
There's a weird side effect of the cocaine, it takes down a lot of rich kids, ruins their lives before they get to the seats of power. The ones who can handle the coke and stay functional enough to pull off a decent interview on CNN, they're promoted to the C-level. The poor? that's what crack and meth are for, like diamonds, they keep the price of powder-coke high to separate the classes, although - as I recall - it was $25-30K per kilo back in the late 80s in Miami (when I was in college, with a coke dealer down the hall of the dorm), and as I understand it it's basically the same today, adjusted for inflation, somewhere in the neighborhood of $50K/k.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Friday March 24 2023, @02:09PM (6 children)
Yes, Ollie was in the chain of command under Reagan, and didn't personally move any drugs.
And I'd call the coke a side effect of the underlying problem: putting psychopaths in charge because they can get higher profits.
Indeed. Why were the very rich not psychopaths before Reagan? Greed and selfishness and loss of empathy are all effects of cocaine.
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday March 24 2023, @03:18PM (4 children)
>Why were the very rich not psychopaths before Reagan?
Technology. They had tighter control of the press, more effective image management consultants, less information leakage and better damage control when it did leak.
Sure, the Rockefellers put up a nice skating rink, but the Chicago Mob also was big into local charity...
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Friday March 24 2023, @07:18PM (3 children)
Nope. They can't whitewash what you can see with your own eyes. You can't hide the minimum wage or the tax tables. They didn't have to. Back then, people made their own home made eggnog without fear of food poisoning. You could safely eat a rare hamburger or chicken. Our food and drug regulators aren't doing their jobs, but instead are doing the lobbyists' bidding.
On the other hand they couldn't whitewash burning rivers and streams, or the fact that you had to roll the windows up driving past Monsanto because the air made your lungs hurt if you didn't, no matter how hot outside it was. You couldn't whitewash the very visible pollution, or the sonic booms from military jets.
But I saw no homeless beggars when I was a teenager, but I did see that the federal minimum wage was $1.50 and a McDonald's hamburger was 15¢ as I can now see that the federal minimum is $7.50 and the burger is $2.49. No whitewashing needed or possible, with or without technology.
If it affects you, you know it and they can't whitewash it.
Technology just allowed people stupid enough to believe a proven liar to spout moronic conspiracy theories to more folks than just their cat.
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday March 24 2023, @08:08PM (2 children)
I thought you were talking about the Robber Barons of the pre-cocaine wave past. Plenty of evil bastards in charge 1920 and before.
I still believe the post war humane treatment of the middle class was due to the returning soldiers getting political power, both in the voting booth and veterans in office. We don't really have many combat veterans anymore (thankfully) but that also erases the political power they used to wield from Truman to Regan.
>you had to roll the windows up driving past Monsanto because the air made your lungs hurt if you didn't, no matter how hot outside it was.
This is still the case in Bayport industrial park, Houston. I would drive my son to school in the mornings down NASA road 1 to the bay, many miles south of Bayport with thousands of suburban homes between, and as we passed over the bayou bridges a different chemical smell would settle in each, chlorine here, ammonia there, lightweight oils in another. In Bayport proper, mucus membranes would sting....
>I saw no homeless beggars when I was a teenager
Neither did I. I lived in a smaller town, the police would corral the poor and homeless away from the "nice side of town" where we lived, and the news would rarely mention them (like once every five years rare.). Like the disabled in my schools, I eventually learned they were there, but the establishment "protected us children" from such harsh realities. My parents made no special effort to expose me to those realities either.
I went to University in Miami and still saw no homeless or beggars within 10 miles of campus, but they were easier to find in Miami if you went looking for them outside the Coral Gables bubble.
>Technology just allowed people stupid enough to believe a proven liar to spout moronic conspiracy theories to more folks than just their cat.
It is a double edged sword. Those that used to forcibly bury their heads in the sand are now faced with images and stories that they have learned to ignore or deny, so they are harder to reach than ever, unless you are feeding them what they want to hear. On the other hand, a fair number of open minded people are much better informed than they used to be.
>the federal minimum wage was $1.50 and a McDonald's hamburger was 15¢... I can now see that the federal minimum is $7.50 and the burger is $2.49.
To be fair, a 1963 McDonald's burger was 6 minutes of minimum wage, today it is 20 minutes, but today's burger probably has 4x the calories and even 4x the nutritional value of the burger from 60 years ago, not that we need it, but that's how it is.
Similarly, automobiles have inflated faster than wages, and that upsets me more because the features that are now legally mandated do little for the safety of getting from point a to point b. I was happy with cars once they had seat belts, headrests, collapsible steering columns, disc brakes and digitally controlled fuel injection (resulting in decent emissions levels). The rest of this crap (airbags included) can go away as far as I am concerned. But, it's legally mandated, honestly does drive costs and therefore prices up and longevity down, and studies of effectiveness all seem highly biased.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Monday March 27 2023, @07:37PM (1 child)
I thought you were talking about the Robber Barons of the pre-cocaine wave past. Plenty of evil bastards in charge 1920 and before.
Cocaine was first made in 1856. It was an ingredient in Coca-Cola until it was outlawed in 1922. You can bet those robber barons were as much coke heads as Musk and Zuckerberg.
As to the burgers, the dime and buck fifty make the math dirt simple. The minimum wage would have to be $24.90 for 1965's buying power. That $2.49 burger is identical to the 15¢ burger, unless they found a cheaper supply of beef.
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday March 27 2023, @08:22PM
>It was an ingredient in Coca-Cola until it was outlawed in 1922. You can bet those robber barons were as much coke heads as Musk and Zuckerberg.
If they were, they hid it better (a strong possibility.)
My grandmother's family doctor (1920s) didn't hide his drug habits well at all.
>That $2.49 burger is identical to the 15¢ burger, unless they found a cheaper supply of beef.
I haven't eaten anything but fries or sundaes from McDs since I got that nasty order of McNuggets in the 1990s. However, I do remember early 1970s McDonald's burgers as being even smaller than the ones in the early 1990s, and nowhere close to what you got for a few cents more from Burger King or Wendy's.
I agree, the formerly dismal buying power of minimum wage has continued to shrink in real terms, but some of the bottom end inflation we have experienced is due to not only price increases for the same products, but also making the bottom end products higher quality, or at least bigger.
Yes: a $4 coffee is insane, but you never got foam art in your $0.25 cup with artificial creamer.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Friday March 24 2023, @03:32PM
>Greed and selfishness and loss of empathy are all effects of cocaine.
I don't disagree on this point. One company I worked for actually did drug screening on new hires and periodic testing on director level and above, complete with the "stay away from the poppy seed bagels" warnings... now, when a test came back positive nobody was fired, but they were pulled in for some counseling...
Rather than banning MJ because it makes the workers lazy and the soldiers insubordinate, it may be time to test upper management for cocaine and cocaine derivatives. Anyone in charge of the livelihoods of more than 1000 people subject to random annual drug testing, and make the results public. Especially in the financial sector, same thing except persons overseeing the retirement funds of 1000 or more people. These guys [imdb.com] are clearly presenting a biased argument, but they put a lot of weight to your statement: we shouldn't be trusting coke heads with our financial stability.
🌻🌻 [google.com]