The future is arriving early: Infant malnutrition at staggering levels in Massachusetts

[Karmadillo]

What a sad country.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2011/aug2011/maln-a03.shtml

Infant malnutrition at staggering levels in Massachusetts

By John Marion
3 August 2011

The Boston Globe reported last week on staggering levels of infant malnourishment in the Boston area. Basing itself on research by the Children’s HealthWatch organization, the Globe compared malnourishment among poor Boston children to that seen in the “developing world.”

While statistically Massachusetts has not been hit as hard as some other states by the economic crisis—the jobless rate stands at 7.6 percent and the state economy grew 4.8 percent in the quarter ending June 30—the Boston Medical Center (BMC) has seen “more hungry and dangerously thin young children ... than at any time in more than a decade,” according to the Globe.

The Globe reported a 5 percent increase between 2005 and 2010 in the number of severely underweight infants (less than a year old) referred to BMC by family physicians. According to surveys conducted by Children’s HealthWatch, the percentage of “significantly underweight” children under the age of three increased from 12 percent in 2007 to 18 percent in 2010.

Between 2007 and May 2011, the number of Massachusetts residents on food stamps (known as EBT cards, or Electronic Benefit Transfer) increased from 452,000 to 815,000. Boston Medical Center doctors told the Globe that “many families are unable to afford enough healthy food to feed their children,” demonstrating that neither food stamps nor Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) food supplements are adequate to meet the needs of unemployed workers and their families in the current economy. Even these limited social benefits stand to be drastically cut back as the effects of federal budget cuts are passed along to the states.

more...

[texanwitch]

1. America is going to hell fast..

This is so sad.

[MannyGoldstein]

2. I'm blown away that this is happening in my state.

Fortunately, because it's Mass, it will probably be remedied promptly.

[Goldstein1984]

3. Peasantification

There's a threshold of suffering that we're approaching--a let-them-eat-cake moment.

[Newest Reality]

4. Brace yourselves

for an increase in deprivations to come. Waves upon waves of destitution will crash on the shores of your awareness. While it will require an increase in help and services, this country has decided to move the other way.

For many of us, the brink has already arrived. I see this all around me. As far as the lag in your own realization of this goes, it depends on where you live. It is spreading and I don't think people will need the media to ever come around to making the point, it will become more obvious in real life.

I agree with Mike Malloy: America is over. Maybe it is time to try something new as some are, rather than looking to a failed system.

[MedicalAdmin]

6. Our clinic charges about 1/2 of what others in the area do.

It's getting bad fast. We are seeing nutritional deficiency diseases that are 3rd world like scurvy and rickets. They are an easy fix, but it is scary to see.

[flvegan]

5. I dream of a day where nutrition, how we feed our bodies, aren't linked to politics.

We spend more time on how we fuel our cars than we do us.

You want sad? There it is.

[SidDithers]

7. Unrec for wsws...nt

Sid

[hobbit709]

8. Recced just because.

[SidDithers]

9. Ain't democracy grand...nt

Sid

[HCE SuiGeneris]

13. Aye. Rec'ing in.

[Gormy Cuss]

12. Reporting on a Boston Globe article? Are you just unreccing as a knee jerk, or did WSWS distort ?

[SidDithers]

17. Then link to the Boston Globe article too...

http://articles.boston.com/2011-07-28/lifestyle/29826064_1_food-pantries-family-physicians-emergency-room

Or better yet, cut out the spin altogether, and make the post about the Boston Globe article.

Sid

[Gormy Cuss]

18. Easy enough to find the article without the link, wasn't it?

So is the AJPH article cited, and that article was the basis for broadening the WSWS discussion beyond the city of Boston. Using the Globe article as the OP would have isolated the discussion to data from one city. Like or hate WSWS spin, the linked commentary does deal with the question in a context greater than one metro.

[xchrom]

10. Recommend

[Karmadillo]

11. Kick

nt

[CleanGreenFuture]

14. The Age of Descent is only just now beginning.

[kenny blankenship]

15. But the Health Insurance Gangsters never miss a meal in Massachusetts.

Highest health care costs in the world, and all must buy it.

Neoliberal Priorities: feed the corporations first, and they'll be charitably disposed towards the rest of us. Or not. But you can't complain, because it's the most efficient and, therefore, best of all possible worlds.

[formercia]

19. Auschwitz was efficient too.

...but that didn't make it Humane.

[Arugula Latte]

16. The answer to that is ... More tax cuts for the wealthy, of course!!!

:grr: