If you’ve been following a fierce debate about U.S. health policy, you might hear this sentence: “The sickest generation in American history.” These words can be found in the third sentence of professionalism Report By Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Secretary of Health and Human Services He sued the Senate at a hearing earlier this month.
This idea (we are much sicker than ever) is the foundation of the radicalism of Maha’s agenda. If true, what options do we have besides blowing up the US healthcare system and re-made it from top to bottom? This is exactly Kennedy The purpose is to do this.
Well, I have good news here: This is not true. In fact, the United States is not the most disgusting country in the world, and this generation (including our children) is far from the most disgusting generation in American history. Once you have gathered the evidence, once you realize the health of the United States in most of the country’s history, it’s so incorrect that it’s almost ridiculous to think about this. All progress over the past few decades vaccine and poison arrive Clean air and water Make Americans healthier Longer than ancestors.
Does this mean that Americans are as healthy as possible or that we are not seeing major new health issues like The growth of obesitythis The spread of chronic diseasesand the rise Diagnosed with a mental illness? no. However, one of the goals of this newsletter is to help put the real problem at the moment in perspective by understanding how far we go from the darker past. Our Negative emotional bias,Depend on The whirlpool of social mediainduce us to catastrophize the present moment. In turn, we stimulate the risk of destroying the foundations of our progress for revolutionary solutions.
Nothing is more important than our attitude toward American health, and the risk of bragging methods is more dangerous. So this is a reality check.
We’ve lived an extra life
Death is not the only enemy of medicine, but It’s the last one. On that final score, Americans today averaged better than almost anyone ahead.
In the late 19th century, even American cities First of all, it’s electricitylife expectancy in the United States is only 40 years – for someone like me, this is a 47-year-old. In the 20th century only, the average life span of Americans Increase More than 30 years. Almost all of these benefits come from improvements in public health, such as the introduction of vaccines and antibiotics, Improvement of cardiovascular caresafer roads and workplaces, as well as cleaner environments and food supplies. (Maha lowered the state of American food, but if you want to know what an unregulated system looked like in the early 20th century, read Upton Sinclair’s classic jungle)
Scientific writer Steven Johnson Have an excellent description For this phenomenon: it seems that Americans have won “extra life” in the whole situation. Although the long-term growth in life expectancy in the U.S. has reversed slightly during the U.S. pandemic, it has Since recovery. Today, the average American expects to be able to live for 78.4 years, or almost twice as many great grandparents as they were born in the 1880s.
We’ve been winning the war on infectious diseases, heart disease and cancer
One of the biggest factors in all extra lives is the success of the drug on infectious diseases. 1900, pneumonia, tuberculosis and diarrhea cause About one-third of all deaths in the United States, with 30% of them dead Among children under 5 years of age. In fact, as of 1915, one in ten babies in the United States were unimaginable Died before their first birthday Just in case you still think today’s kids are the most disgusting ever. This is more Afghanistan suffers Now. Until the 1950s, there were about 16,000 Americans (most of them children) each year. Paralyzed polio.
Today, only a small number of Americans Died from an infectious disease. Diseases like polio are attributed to vaccines, and more recently HIV infections – Killed nearly one million Americans Between the early 1980s and the late 1990s – now it has become a manageable condition Amazing progress in antiviral therapy. One of the reasons for the COVID pandemic is that it is so overwhelming that Americans have lost experience with a new and new infectious disease, even there, it is estimated that mRNA vaccines are developed at lightning speed Stopped millions of deaths.
Americans are increasingly dying from non-infectious diseases as deaths declined in the last century Heart attack and cancer. In a sense, it is a sign of healthy success—these diseases hit later in life, and longer lifespans mean more Americans reach the age when cancer and cardiovascular disease are threatening. But despite some data The rise of cancer in some young people, The overall death of cancer has been Consistently falling For decades, heart attacks Much less fatal Now is 50 years ago. One important reason for the two trends: Smoking is down. Start an episode mad Men Tell me these guys are healthier than today.
We cleaned up the environment
The haze is not just tobacco. Take a look at Los Angeles around 1979:
The United States in the 1960s and 1970s was a highly polluted place, and environmental hazards directly harmed human health. The car is still running on leaded gasoline, Burn 200,000 tons Every year, highly neurotoxic lead, the results were estimated to be exposed to Unfavorable level. Smoke covers our city, Water supply receives much less treatment. Polluted rivers Literally on fireWoolen cloth
Today, the water and air in the United States are cleaner. Cumulative emissions of six major air pollutants, such as sulfur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide Falling 78% In 1970, between the Commemorative Clean Air Act and the benchmark year of 2023. Environmental leadership 99% down Between 1980 and 2005, it has been declining since then. The last point is especially important – lead is highly toxic to children. Causes lower IQ and other developmental problems. Today’s children have blood levels Average low of 96% It is a surprising improvement in public health than children in the late 1970s. (Given that I’m not that good for me Once was A child in the late 1970s. )
Another approach to environmental safety has been improved: both vehicles and workplaces are more dangerous than before. Although the mortality rate per mile is still too high, The quarter was 1970and the car accident mortality rate for children under 13 years of age 81% down Since 1975. Workplace death About 60% of the fall Even the size of the U.S. labor force has increased since 1970.
We may not be as sick as we think we are
How is the health of children Autism and ADHDHas it really soared in recent decades? As my Vox colleague Dylan Scott Written this yearmost of the significant increase represents liberalized diagnostic criteria that have been expanded to cover more children. For example, over the past 30 years, the rate of children with high support for us who need autism has increased only slightly. In short, we are diagnosing more children that we would have missed before. It would be a good thing if it had needed their support earlier, but that would not support the argument that this generation of kids is sick.
In fact, some doctors now believe that medicine has a wider diagnostic problem in everything from mental health to some cancers, both due to how to view social changes in health and to improve the testing methods of the past, thereby absorbing mild illnesses that may not have been found in the past. “The most important thing is that if you screen healthy people for illness, any disease, whether it’s cancer or hypertension, diabetes, you’ll pick up the edge cases and overtreat,” Dr. Suzanne O’Sullivan Age of diagnosis: How our obsession with medical labels makes us sick,Tell Vox May.
from obesity and diabetes arrive Youth Mental Health and Death from drug overdoseThere are many ways for us to get really sick, and it is getting more and more annoying. But I challenge anyone to go back to an era where every 10 American children die before they are 1 year old, or HIV is the obvious death penalty, or when urban air is suffocated by smoke and tell me that we live in a unique age of illness.
The solution to the real health challenges we face today is not too many Maha wants Destroy the foundations of public health achievements We like it today, but based on them.
The version of this story originally appeared in The Good Newsletter. Register here!
